Liberation of Lier and the ensuing months

Lier had not been totally abandoned by the German troops. At various locations groups of retreating Germans fired on residents even as they were already celebrating. In what is now the district of Koningshooikt, British troops even captured a large number of German soldiers.

Not everyone in Lier lived to enjoy the liberation. As in many other Belgian towns, the Germans deported Jewish residents with the help of the local authority during the occupation. Via the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen, they ended up in the concentration camps of the Third Reich. The vast majority did not survive their time in the camps, including Dyszka Zolty and her children Berisch, David and the new-born Mireille. They were deported from Lier just a few weeks before the liberation and were killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. With the help of local people, the father, Jakob Lemel, went into hiding in Emblem. Tragically, he experienced the liberation entirely alone.

For the residents who had collaborated with the German occupiers – or were suspected of doing so – the liberation of Lier was anything but a happy occasion. Immediately after the German troops had left Lier, the Resistance detained 322 so-called ‘blacks’ in the Sion Barracks. As in Breendonk and other places in Belgium, the Resistance took revenge. Prisoners were mistreated. The local authority intervened and the suspected collaborators were brought to an internment camp in Mechelen to await trial.

The war continues

The British liberators moved quickly through Lier. New soldiers arrived not long afterwards. At the end of September, a temporary hospital was established for 300 patients in the Rijksnormaalschool (a teacher-training college). As in other places in Antwerp, soldiers who were injured in the continuing fighting with the German army were treated there. Soldiers who died were buried in the military cemetery on Mechelsesteenweg. Forty soldiers are still buried there today.

The Allied troops also set up air defence units in Lier and Koningshooikt. In an attempt to reverse the course of the war in Germany’s favour, Hitler was targeting the liberated Antwerp with a secret weapon: the feared V1 flying bomb. The city was an important German target because of its strategic importance to the Allies. Lier and Koningshooikt were part of a defensive ring established around Antwerp to intercept the German unmanned planes.

Lier and Koningshooikt were both hit by V1 bombs. The projectiles were unreliable and frequently crashed before reaching their target. Bombs that were shot down also caused a lot of damage. In all, 55 V1 bombs were dropped on Lier and 15 on Koningshooikt. They not only caused physical damage, but also took the lives of 49 people. The terror bombing by Germany, and the violence of war, only finally ended in March 1945.