Sophie Lion-Lutgen

Bigonville during the Battle of the Bulge

Sunday, December 17

American soldiers have been in town for several days. Yesterday, however, there was suddenly great excitement among them; trucks were dashing in all directions. In the countryside a number of German paratroopers have been captured. And today all the Americans left us. What on earth is the matter? In the evening the radio announced: “The Germans have crossed the border at Echternach and Vianden.” We are hoping that the Americans will drive them back again.

Monday, December 18

Everywhere the villagers are standing around in groups. It seems that the Germans are pushing rapidly forward. They must already be in Wilwerwiltz. All the people are packing up; nobody wants to be here when they come. Towards evening tractors with fully loaded wagons are rolling through the streets. A number of cars follow next, jammed with people, and bicycles with people hanging all over them. Most of the people who are fleeing are from Wiltz.

Tuesday, December 19

Already early in the morning it’s swarming with refugees outside. Open vans, pulled by one or two horses, with old people, women and children, with suitcases and baskets, are rattling hurriedly down the streets. People on foot laboriously pull their fully-loaded handcarts behind them. They have to travel on the shoulders, because the streets belong to the cars, the motorcycles, and the tractors. Sometimes there is a traffic jam, the streets are so full - we stand at the ‘Grippchen’, (Ed: a crossroad in town) look at it all, and rush back in the house to pack up. Oh, this excitement, this fear! Where do all these frantic people want to go? They don’t know themselves; just “farther on,” always “farther on.” And we? - All day long this flight through the town goes on. Many farmers are also leading their cattle with them. Toward evening the first villagers from Bauschleiden are coming through. Now it’s high time to make everything ready for the departure. The wagons are standing in front of the houses, and will be loaded with straw, oats, trunks and suitcases. It’s getting dark. Many evacuees from Rodershausen, Consthum and Wiltz have halted in the village to rest up a little. American tanks with lights turned out are driving down the ‘Knupp’.(Ed: the northern part of town) Are they also fleeing from the Germans? And already the news is coming in: “The Germans are in Arsdorf and Bauschleiden.” (Ed: only a few miles from Bigonville) Head over heels the new arrivals are leaving the town. The majority of our villagers are also hastily hitching up their horses to their fully loaded wagons, and are driving off in the middle of the night. We pack until 2:30 in the morning. Mother will certainly not go with us into the unknown. Three families from the neighborhood are still around. What will these folks decide? What will happen to the cattle in the sheds when everyone pulls out?

At 3:00 o’clock in the morning we go to bed. It is a frightful, fear-filled night. On and on the wagons roll through the village.

Wednesday, December 20

Early in the morning the neighbors are downstairs in the house, and we have a discussion. What’s to be done? Stay or go? Three families agree to stay here, and now finally comes a little peace and quiet. No more wagons are coming from Bauschleiden. A few more Bigonville people leave, including one of our neighbors. Evacuees from Rodershausen stay behind in his house. How quiet the streets are! The shutters are closed. The cows are mooing in their stalls. All the young men are gone, except for my brother. We urge him and urge him, and he leaves in the afternoon on his bike. Soon after, two young husbands from our neighborhood, who went away yesterday, are back. It’s a shame that my brother isn’t here any more.

In order to quiet down the cows, a young man feeds them; he has five sheds to take care of. My sister will milk the cows and feed the calves and the pigs with the milk. At about half past six we are in a shed across the street. It’s completely dark outside. Fortunately there is still electric lighting in the sheds. At about seven we put out the light in the shed and start to leave. “Don’t leave the house!” someone shouts from the street. We stand there, rooted to the spot. “We live on the other side of the street”, I reply. “Starting a half-hour ago you may not go out, or we’ll shoot.” Now we know for sure whom we are dealing with. We retreat back into the shed. In the morning the news had come from Bauschleiden; the Germans are there. In the houses where no one remained, they have stolen and wrecked everything, but they were friendly with the ones who stayed behind. Suddenly a heavy pounding on the door. I open it. A machine gun pokes inside. “Are there Americans here?” I say no. In the lamplight I discern two German soldiers, armed to the teeth. They move on. A short while later they are back again. They want to know if we’d be willing to give them some coffee. Thus we are allowed to go back to our house again. They eat with us and are glad to be in a warm place and to get something in their bellies. This is what they told us: They have come through the forest from Bauschleiden, and they’ve been in the village since six o’clock, going from house to house. Wherever people didn’t open to their knocking, they broke down the doors. They are full of amazement at the good equipment and the hearty rations of the Americans and also at the good things that they have found in Luxembourg; meat, lard, butter, eggs, brandy. They have no rations. What they needed to eat they had to take from the empty houses. They showed us the little hand grenades (Ed: the so-called “Egg grenades”, probably) with which their pockets are full. With these they had so frightened the “Amis” that they had taken to their heels so fast that they could no longer follow them. Each one has a belt of machine gun ammunition slung over his shoulder. They show us their soleless boots, and their ragged trousers.

They thank us a great deal and leave. They want to come back at eight o’clock to hear the news on the radio. Outside, however, because they had left their posts, they are bawled out so roughly by their superior officers that they forget to come back again. Shortly thereafter, trucks and tanks are rolling through the streets and infantry are marching by. How will all this turn out?

Thursday, December 21

In the morning the street has a completely different appearance. Germans everywhere. They go in and out of the empty houses. In the afternoon, two groups of infantry pull out of the village.

They have loaded blankets and groceries on two-wheeled carts, and are carrying heavy machine-guns, ammunition, picks and shovels. One group goes down the ‘Froumicht’. (Ed: an area just west of town) One man pushes in front of him a loaded baby-carriage.

As soon as not a single soldier is to be seen anywhere, we go together into several houses where the Germans had moved in. All the closet doors are open, drawers are pulled out and dumped, candy and preserve jars half-emptied. A wretched shambles on tables, chairs, and on the floor. Beside a strong-box lies a heavy blacksmith’s sledge and a broken axe. But the thing had not yielded. The cat had had to suffer the consequences. She lay next to it, dead as a door-nail.

After that we found ourselves once again feeding the animals in the abandoned sheds. We even found some increase in one of the sheds - a very beautiful little calf. We gave him the name of his owner.

In the evening the town is once again overrun with soldiers. Also four tanks, including a captured American one, have arrived. They sit in concealment behind the ends of the houses.

Friday, December 22

Something seems to be brewing. The soldiers are excited. We can hear the thunder of cannons, ever more frequent and louder. Around two o’clock the tanks drive off toward Flatzbour. Someone has reported an American tank and a jeep there. (Ed: probably the American 25th Cavalry reconnaissance team) They pull back into town after a brief skirmish. Things are getting more and more dangerous. A soldier who is quartered with us advises us not to go to bed tonight because it could get bad, so we sleep, wrapped in blankets, in the apartment.. Snow is falling outside.

Saturday, December 23

Monday is Christmas. The soldiers bring in sugar, flour, and baking pans. They want to do some baking for the holiday. In spite of this, there’s a sense of danger. We civilians huddle together, hoping and fearing. The German soldier urges us to make the cellar liveable. We carry blankets and food supplies downstairs and prepare a campsite with straw. It is arranged for the three refugees who are living in the neighbor’s house to come over into our cellar. Grandpa brings with him a pickaxe and a crowbar. You never can tell what lies ahead.

At about 12:30 the German tanks move forward. As many soldiers as possible have to go up. (Ed: to Flatzbour, presumably) Fear is in their faces. A young soldier, hardly 16 years old, rolls on the ground wailing. Only after a good talking-to by his captain does he go up. The tanks go up the Kimm (Ed: a road leading to Flatzbour) We are in the sheds when a German armored scout car goes charging up the ‘Knupp’. The deafening crack of a bursting shell fills the street. The American attack on Bigonville has begun.

We run into the cellar. Explosion after explosion follow. When they go off nearby the foundations tremble, and so do we. The soldiers come and go in the cellar. They calm us down. No direct hit would fall in here. The two houses in front would protect us. It gets to be 16:00. The cows are starting to get restless. With each shell-burst they leap up, and the horse too. We hear them clearly because they are right above us. Toward 17:30 it gets quieter. “A short pause in the battle”, says one soldier. Quickly we feed the stock. After that the horse will not let us leave the shed; he doesn’t want to be alone.

A family runs frantically down the street. Their house has taken a direct hit; all the cows are dead, and the horse is badly wounded. The people hurry into another cellar. We quickly make coffee. Hardly have we finished than artillery fire begins again. With one leap the neighbor is in our entryway; roof slate and boards are flying about him. The roof of the shed next to us has taken a hit.

Now we are once again sitting in the cellar by flickering candlelight. We talk among ourselves in order to keep our courage up. But outside the inexorable war rages on.

We try to sleep. Some succeed. The others listen into the night, their rosaries slipping through their trembling fingers. It is becoming a very long night. The explosions follow each other ever more furiously. It is utterly weird.

Two battle-weary German soldiers have decided between themselves to await the arrival of the Americans and to go into captivity. They huddle under their blankets and keep still. From time to time one goes out to check up on the situation.

Sunday, December 24

At two o’clock in the morning the firing becomes even stronger. We light the candles again. We have no more need to be sparing with them because, one way or another, we’re getting close to the end. Our nerves are stretched to the breaking point. Courage threatens to leave us. Even if we come out of here alive, the whole house and the whole village will lie in rubble and ashes.

The shooting right in front of the house has been quiet for some time. But the shell-bursts are getting twice as frequent; we have the feeling that every one will hit the house. Finally some daylight seeps through the openings in the cellar vents. The cows begin to bellow once again. But this time we don’t let ourselves weaken. From above us comes the sound of running back and forth through the barn. Both the barn doors must be open. It is quite bright up on the cellar stairs. We keep still as mice. If only it does not occur to anyone to fire shots down into the cellar.

Now we hear the American dive bombers. Will they drop their loads here? I think with horror about the bombing in Luxembourg City back on the 9th of May, 1944, which I lived through in an air-raid shelter. Already a bomb is whistling. Fearfully I wait for its detonation.. Now a second...a third...The droning moves away. Thank God. We’re still alive. 10:00 o’clock. As the heavy artillery fire slackens, the machine guns rattle more wildly. Behind the wall of every house a soldier must be standing. Whenever a shell falls, instantly the machine gun fire goes silent.

Suddenly we hear outside in front of the cellar windows a mysterious snapping (clicking) sound: slowly, then more rapidly. Are they about to blow up the house? But the German soldiers calm us. It’s the Americans who are giving signals. (Ed: with their “crickets”) In terror we recognize the smell of burning.. “The barn is on fire!” is our first thought. Immediately one of the soldiers goes up the stairs. No. There’s nothing burning at our house, but clouds of smoke are billowing through the street.

The battle is still not over. The rifle fire keeps on clattering. House after house is combed through by the Americans. By about 15:30 the Americans have pushed forward as far as the school. We all leave the cellar and run to the barn door to greet our saviors, but the soldiers, looking fierce, with bearded faces and a mysterious fire in their eyes, weapons levelled, signal us to stay inside. Danger is still threatening, both for them and for us. Terrified, we retreat back into the cellar.Once again we live through some fearful minutes as the Americans surround houses and barns in search of Germans. After that it becomes quieter. The two German soldiers in our cellar prepare themselves for captivity. One of them does this apparently with some hesitation. He says that the war is surely about to end soon, and he has a longing to see his mother. He wants to slip away. The other tries to persuade him. “Don’t make any trouble for these people! You’ll get to know America.” Finally both of them leave the cellar.

When we finally go outside at 16:00 o’clock, the Americans are in the process of carrying out the weapons search of the German soldiers who, with hands held high, are coming out from everywhere. There are perhaps 60 men in our street. (Ed: Over 300 were captured) Finally they are led away.

We look around us. In the neighbors’apartment window we see the horror-stricken faces of the little children and women. We learn that several of them had run out of the cellar into the fields, and as a result two of them were fatally struck by shell fragments.

The street presents a horrifying, wretched spectacle. Everywhere lie dead German soldiers, many terribly mangled. Cows are wandering around loose. One of them drags a piece of wood from the manger behind her on her chain. A few lie dead on the ground.

The corner of our house, and our neighbors’ as well, have taken hits. Big holes gape in the walls and roofs. The front wall of one house is demolished. Will the riddled and shattered church steeple remain standing? The ground is covered with stones, roof slate, laths, and the trash of war. Torn-up wires hang from the electric poles. Up in the village a house is burning, and the flames flare up eerily in the growing darkness. It still is not completely safe. Shells whistle overhead and gunfire resounds from nearby. The few people who have stayed here appear out in the street again. Everybody is coming face to face with the terrors of the past days. Each person has something bad to report. And nevertheless we are all happy that we have lived through it unhurt.

And tomorrow is Christmas...