A Street in Arnhem: The Agony of Occupation and Liberation
Click on the image to enlargePUBLISHED 14th AUGUST 2014
Robert Kershaw follows up his best-selling account of the Battle of Arnhem from German eyes - It Never Snows in September, to focus on the experience of Dutch civilians and British and Germans soldiers in one street fighting to survive at the heart of one of the most intense battles of World War 2.
It is a dramatic history of human experiences, sights, sounds, emotions and fears as ordinary people struggle to cope as their street is overwhelmed in a savage and bloody conflict, right on their doorstep. The street is Utretchsweg, a road that runs seven kilometres from Arnhem railway station west to Oosterbeek - a road that saw virtually every major event during the fighting for Arnhem during Operation Market-Garden in September 1944. The author's new research reveals the extent to which most people in this battle, whether soldiers or civilians, saw only what was immediately happening to them. They had virtually no idea of what was going on around them. It offers a unique picture of a stable and established community coping with a disaster and progressing through joy, shock, horror, resignation and then despair as their lives are irrevocably ruined by the conflagration bursting over them.
The story is told as a docudrama following the fortunes of a number of British, Polish, German and Dutch characters, within a gripping narrative. This is the compelling story of what happens when your street, where you and your family have lived for generations, is suddenly overwhelmed by conflict.
