On May 10th 1940, the war begins for most residents of Tiel when they hear aircrafts flying over towards the West. Many residents have to temporarily evacuate to the province of South-Holland. Five tough war years follow. From November '44 to May '45, Allied artillery fired from across the river Waal at the German soldiers present in Tiel. This had disastrous consequences for Tiel's city centre; it was almost completely destroyed. Moreover, Tiel lost almost its entire Jewish community due to the war. This walking route starts at WW2 Information Centre Tiel, which focuses on the history of Tiel and the River area during the Second World War. There were not much cities in Western Europe that were in the front line as long as Tiel was, over seven months. On this route, you will learn more about how the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944 had a major impact on Tiel and the River area.

The Netherlands

St Martin's church and tower.

Tiel's city centre destroyed. 

Dutch troops at Tiel Station at the beginning of the war. 

Jewish Monument: bitter tears. 

Tiel: destruction of a city centre 

Geurt van der Zalm, Maarten Noordzij and Piet Oosterlee were trying to get air in their inflatable boat on 22 October 1944 to carry intelligence and a few men, including a courier, across the river Waal. The Waal crossers were unexpectedly surrounded by German soldiers. They were marched off to the so infamous Juliana School on Grotebrugse Grintweg, in those days the headquarters of the occupiers in Tiel. The school served as the prison of the Wehrmacht led by Tiel's notorious Ortskommandant, Hauptmann Martin Richter. Piet Oosterlee, in a desperate attempt to escape the next morning, Monday 23 October, jumped out of the window of the interrogation room, which was located in a villa adjacent to the school. He was promptly shot dead by a German guard. What exactly happened to Piet's body is unknown. The other two men were presumably executed the same day; it's unknown what exactly happened to them. The the memorial plaque was initiated by Nelleke van Eck, a great niece of the killed Maarten Noordzij. Text and photos were collected by Emile Smit and the sign was manufactured by Bas Reijnen.

Ferry service to freedom 

As the war progressed, German soldiers became more and more violent. In Tiel, Ortskommandant Martin Richter in particular was notorious. Under his responsibility, several serious warcrimes took place in 1944-1945. Best known is the so-called 'Tiel case'. This involved men who had been arrested for, in German eyes, serious offences. After their arrest, they were taken to the Ortskommandantur for interrogation.It has never been known what happened to at least six of them. Probably they were murdered in the building and their remains were taken to an unknown destination. Some witnesses stated after the war that, in October 1944, they saw how bodies were taken away on a flat cart in the evening, after which the cart returned empty an hour later.The school building was reinstated as a school after 1945. In 1994, the name changed to Prince Willem-Alexander School. When the building was demolished in 2013, its historical background was not taken into account.

The former Juliana school

The city of Tiel was badly damaged in the war years 1944-1945. In the months of June-August 1945, the debris was cleared. Anything not reusable was dumped in the Old Harbour. In the following years, the population was called upon to donate money for a commemorative statue. This was placed in the park created on the Old Harbour, on top of the war rubble. The statue was unveiled on 4 May 1950 by Mrs Laagwater-van Scherpenzeel, the widow of the fallen resistance fighter G.J. Laagwater.In 1997, the park at the Oude Haven was replaced by a car park. In consultation with survivors and relatives of victims, the statue was moved to the park near St Martin's Church in July 1997.In 2009, a stone in memory of the four people from Tiel who lost their lives in the Indonesian war of independence in 1945-1949, was placed next to the statue. In 2019, a stone was also added there in memory of the Moluccan KNIL soldiers who died during that battle or later died in exile in the Netherlands.

The Fallen Warior Monument

From October 1944, the front between the German troops and the Allies was located near the river Waal. Opposite Tiel were artillery positions, from which shots could be fired at Tiel. The St Martin's tower was equipped with guard and observation posts and from there German soldiers could observe Allied positions across the river. The church tower automatically became a target. On 21 November 1944, it suffered significant damage. At the end of the war, there was a large hole in the church. A storm on 14 May 1945 caused the upper section to collapse completely. Until 1963, the tower and the rest of the church stood like a ruin. In 1963-1964, restoration took place. On that occasion, the Saint Martin tower also received a carillon, which, however, did not help the stability of the tower. Therefore, in 1987, the foundation had to be reinforced.

Tower of St Martin's church

When the war was over, there were still dangerous explosives in many places in the Rivierenland area. Even now, they are occasionally found. In 1945, Tiel was not yet safe for the evacuees who returned to their homes. Five children experienced this in a terrible way on 11 June 1945. The children killed in Tiel were certainly not the only victims to perish after the liberation. While many recollections have been published over the years and many victims came into the picture posthumously, very little attention has been paid to these post-liberation victims.On the Lingedijk, there was a commemoration on 4 May 2009. This was organised by Koos van der Kolk, a witness at the time. He wrote in his memories:It is 11 June 1945, around three in the afternoon. A deafening bang. The whole area shakes. What I find a moment later cannot be described with a pen. There are children lying on the ground: badly injured or dead. I don't know. Screams everywhere. Crawling and bleeding children. I know them all, one by one. Children of Sijsma, little boy van Zijderveld, and girl Bennink, and boy Simons, friends, brothers and cousins.

The drama at the Lingedijk

In 1882, the railway line was extended from Geldermalsen to Nijmegen. This created an international train connection from Rotterdam to Germany. The railway line was also important, because it partly broke the isolation of the Betuwe area. This made it possible to send large quantities of Betuwe fruit to other parts of the country.In the 1930s, a large industrial area was built near the Tiel station because of fruit transports. This made the area even more strategically important during the war. In the period 1944-1945, when Tiel was occupied by German forces and the other side of the Waal had already been liberated, the station became a strategic target. The heaviest shelling took place on New Year's Day 1945. On 11 February, a crashing V-1 struck a 25-metre crater near the station. Nevertheless, the Tiel station withstood the war.Train services to Tiel were restored in July 1945. Yet the line along Tiel never again became the international connection it had been before the war. The Tiel station building is a municipal monument. Similar stations were built in Sneek and in Gorinchem.

Tiel trainstation 

The monument shows a picture of the prison and the names of the five victims. After the war, a simple memorial plaque was placed on the prison wall. However, this disappeared when the building was demolished in 1947. A new memorial did not appear until 2018 and the current one was placed in 2022.Tiel prison was built as the House of Detention in 1860 and was located opposite the (still existing) court building. During the war, the building came under German control.After the river Waal became the frontline between liberated and occupied Netherlands in the autumn of 1944, secret crossings over the river took place from Tiel. In particular, the Tiel resistance tried to help Allied soldiers who had ended up in occupied territory for various reasons (e.g. as aircrew of crashed aircrafts). German troops got wind of a planned crossing in December 1944. They raided the house where the pilot in question was and captured him and the lady of the house. To prevent the woman from betraying the local restistance, resistance fighters freed her from the Tiel police station in the evening of 23 December. That same night and in the morning, eight Tiel men were arrested as taken hostage. The German occupying forces demanded the extradition of the woman in question. When that did not happen, five of the hostages were executed in the prison courtyard on 24 December at 13.05 in the afternoon. Although the names of the responsible Germans are known, no one was ever punished for this war crime.

Black Christmas in Tiel

The city of Tiel traditionally had separate market squares for various products. The present Markt was mainly used for trading fruit and vegetables and was therefore referred to as Groenmarkt (greenmarket). Since the nineteenth century, the square was mainly home to several shops and the most important hotel in the area, Hotel Corbelijn. This made the Groenmarkt the most important square in Tiel. In the middle of the Groenmarkt was a rococo-style city pump dating from 1768. In the winter of 1944-1945, the buildings were damaged beyond repair. After 1945, it was decided to make this square the central point of the city. It was enlarged in some places and, in addition, a new access street was added, the Damstraat. The name changed to Markt instead of Groenmarkt.Where Hotel Corbelijn once stood, the municipality wanted a new city hall, but it never happened. In 1959, the hotel was rebuilt, but already in 1976 it was closed. Now the building houses the HEMA department store. Today, the Markt is no longer used as a market square. It is part of the Tiel promenade and there are several restaurants around the square. All the buildings are post-war and precisely because of the lack of the old buildings, it shows how enormous the destruction of Tiel was.

The pump on the Market Square

The Flipje and Streekmuseum Tielshows the history of Tiel and the region, known as a centre of fruit production and processing. Tiel is also known as the the birthplace of ‘Flipje’, and the museum has a large ‘Flipje’ collection. In the WW2 Information Centre, visitors can learn about various characters who tell their stories about the war, whilst a short film illustrates the events. Visitors can also find information about the other places of remembrance and museums in the Gelderland Rivierengebied.The building that houses the Flipje and Streekmuseum was built in 1789, by order of the Groote Sociëteit, a gentlemen's club, and has a rich history.FlipjeFlipje was conceived in 1935 as an advertising figure of the jam factory 'De Betuwe' in Tiel. The little man has a thick raspberry body, with arms and legs made of red berries and a hat detailing his name. Up until 1954, fifty comic strips were published showing the adventures of Flipje and his friends. In each adventure, Flipje solves a problem, and when everything has turned out well, he treats his friend to lemonade, jam or apple juice. From 2002 to 2010, five new comic books were released.

WW2 Information Centre Rivierengebied

Jews lived in Tiel from the seventeenth century onwards. The local Jewish community flourished mainly in the nineteenth century. The standing synagogue was built in 1839. Ten years earlier, the Tiel Jews had their own - still existing - cemetery on the Voor de Kijkuit. The building to the left of the monument housed an internationally renowned Jewish boarding school in the nineteenth century. From about 1900 onwards, the number of Jewish residents of Tiel declined as livelihoods were better in the larger cities. In 1940, Tiel still had sixty Jewish residents.After the German occupation, life for Dutch Jews was made increasingly difficult. In Tiel, the first major razzia was planned for 17 November 1942. Because the Tiel police commander, J.S. de Jong, refused to arrest innocent people and let the Jews be warned, there was only one casualty then. In the months that followed, many went into hiding, but for some there was no option. On 9 April, the last eight Jews from Tiel, along with 13 more peers from surrounding villages, went by van to the Vught concentration camp. Of these 21 people, only two survived. Hardly any Jews returned to Tiel after the war, but the Blijdesteijn family did. The synagogue was converted into a mosque in 1978 and Tiel's Jewish community was formally disbanded in 1987.Small speakers are located in the tears of the monument, from which the names of the victims can be heard. These names are followed by the statement in many languages: "I say: never again!"