Liberation Day is on May 5, but why does Eindhoven celebrate on September 18? May 5 is indeed the National Liberation Day. However, the city of Eindhoven had already been liberated by the Allies on September 18, 1944.
Occupation and suppression
The Netherlands was occupied in May 1940 after five days of sometimes heavy fighting. At that time, the city centre of Rotterdam was virtually levelled, with nearly 900 killed and 85,000 made homeless. Later, during the German occupation, thousands of civilians died due to the Nazi rule and air raids. The Allied bombings of German targets in the Netherlands also resulted in the substantial loss of Dutch lives, for instance, in The Hague and Nijmegen.
The Jewish population suffered especially: three-quarters of the Dutch Jews did not survive the war. The Diary of Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager, documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944 during the German occupation of the Netherlands. It is one of the world’s best-known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.
Liberation
On September 12, 1944, at 10:00 a.m., the first American ground troops of the 30th Infantry Division (nicknamed the “Old Hickory Division”) set foot on Dutch soil in the small village of Mesch. The next day, the capital of the province of Limburg, Maastricht, was reached. The liberation of Eindhoven, Operation Market Garden, is a combined effort of the American and British troops, namely the 101st American Airborne Division and Second British Army. The division sent the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment from the landing sites above Son to the south to take the city. They reached the outskirts of Eindhoven on September 18 at 9:00 AM. By noon, most of the city was under their control. Soon, the people celebrate exuberantly. The Americans and British are greeted with cheers and chants. People dance in the streets, and the joy is unprecedented. But the day after, it abruptly turns into its opposite. German bombers appeared above the city of Eindhoven and bombed the city, resulting in many civilian casualties.
Remembrance
Eindhoven is the only city in Western Europe that has celebrated its freedom ever since 1945, and on the precise date that British and American troops liberated the city. Foundation 18 September (Stichting 18 September) organises a torchlight procession – in which many cultural organisations and sports clubs in Eindhoven participate, honours not only the many sacrifices that were made during the liberation of the city and its surroundings on 18 September 1944 but also makes young people particularly aware that freedom cannot be taken for granted. In the presence of numerous veterans and military vehicles, the liberation fire enters the city at the end of a long cycling and walking procession from the first French city liberated by the Allies: Bayeux. Every year at 7:30 PM, a commemoration of the victims claimed by the war takes place at De Oude Toren cemetery.
Sources: Stichting 18 September
Visit Brabant
US Embassy and Consulate in the Netherlands
