The exhibition Berlin (1912-1932) at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium is an impressive collection of two decades of German art that represents Weimar culture, Expressionism, Dada and new objectivity in paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, films and architecture.

In this period Berlin was the cosmopolitan and mythical artistic hotspot of the twenties which experienced an unprecedented transformation. Social, political and technological upheavals revolutionised postwar society and artistic creation. The exposition highlights this key period with a Belgian view of the German art scene in mind, it pays special attention to an everyday reality that was marked by crisis and utopia, ravage and euphoria, misery and decadence.

This period, also known as the ‘Golden Twenties’, is represented through more than 200 major artworks by recognised artist like Otto Dix, Raoul Hausmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Hannah Höch and more.

Discover the art of Berlin until the end of January at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.

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The pair will be joined by Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel for the commemorations to mark the moment when the guns finally fell silent after four long years of bitter conflict.The visits reflect a shared history and shared future, said May,

St. Symphorien Military Cemetery contains the graves of John Parr, the first UK soldier to be killed in 1914, and the last, George Ellison. He was killed on the Western Front at 09:30 GMT, before the Armistice came into effect at 11:00, 100 years ago this Sunday.

The commemoration on Friday will include vehicles from World War One, historical film footage, music and readings from letters and diaries. At the same time, the local bell ringer will perform a programme of music based on the tunes played as Canadian troops entered the city in the winter of 1918. In the evening, the Grand’Place will be the setting for a light show projected on to the wall of the 15th-century town hall.

 

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On Sunday, about 70 world leaders including US President Donald Trump, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Germany’s Angela Merkel will take part in a ceremony on the Champs-Elysees in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One.

The European Parliament’s President Antonio Tajani will also attend the commemorative ceremony.

Armistice Day is a national holiday in Belgium and many of the commemorations here will focus on the Flemish city of Ypres from which most soldiers left for the front line, many of whom never returned.

A series of events are planned until Sunday, including the daily Last Post at 8pm, and for details on these please see the link below.As the historic commemorations got underway, it emerged that the families of 16 forgotten First World War soldiers buried in a small Belgian cemetery have been tracked down by a team of amateurs genealogists.

A group of 10 amateur historians and genealogists launched their bid to find living relatives of the forgotten soldiers in September after a Belgian historian called for help in locating any living relatives of the dead soldiers.

The soldiers, eight of who are from the 14th Fife & Forfar Yeomanry Battalion of the Black Watch, died in the village of Orcq, near Tournai, on 23 October 1918, just days before the armistice was signed, during the final battles on the Western Front.

Each year, the tiny Belgium village remembers the men, who lie in its communal cemetery, but locals said no family members had visited the graves for several generations and local historian Bernard Demaire launched the appeal to find relatives of the men while planning a special ceremony to commemorate the 100th anniversary of their death.

The outbreak of war in 1914 left many Belgians homeless and penniless and the story of the Belgian refugees is a fascinating one which, with the ongoing asylum and migrant crisis still high on Europe’s political agenda, has resonance today.

The number who fled the country from 1914-18 was approximately one-sixth of the Belgian population back then. They headed to the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands to flee the encroaching German troops.

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Two wounded British soldiers arm-in-arm with a wounded German prisoner (left) as they walk on a dirt road towards a dressing station, during WWI. Our Instagram Story today looks at images of Germany and its soldiers during the war to end all wars. Ahead of Sunday’s Armistice Centenary, our editors have sourced historic imagery for the many narratives of the conflict. Tap our bio link to explore. __ 📷: Hulton Archive/Getty Images | circa 1916 __ #ww1centenary #armistice100 #WWI #westernfront #conflictphotography #warphotography #remembrancesunday #armisticeday #gettyarchive

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An estimated 250,000 no less headed to the four nations of the UK for safety. In fact, the Belgians in wartime Britain constituted the biggest single ethnic influx of refugees into Britain to date. About one in three stayed in London or its environs. The number of refugees in Wales, Scotland and Ireland together was never more than ten percent of the total Belgian community in exile in the British Isles.

Some of those who didn’t head to Britain made the relative short journey over the border to France, parts of which were occupied during WW1.

At first, the Belgian refugees were greeted with open arms and a favourite destination was Birtley in County Durham, a small industrial village that became a central hub for 4,000 new Belgian neighbours in WW1. Birtley was chosen as the site of two munitions factories, staffed entirely by Belgian soldiers, their families and other refugees. The resulting community was nicknamed “Elisabethville”, after the Belgian queen Elisabeth of Bavaria.

At its height, Elisabethville accommodated between 2-3.75% of the entire Belgian refugee population living in the UK. The personal story of Brussels botanist Jean Massart is particularly intriguing.

Ruth Pirlet, who has carried out extensive in-depth research on the impact of WW1 on Belgium for the Ostende-based Flanders Marine Institute, said that few months after the start of hostilities, Massart, from the Brussels commune of Etterbeek, suspended all his botanical studies  because he believed “there was no time to lose yourself in speculations of pure science when the entire word’s political geography was at stake.”

In an article for the Institute, Ruth wrote, “He subsequently devoted his time to writing and distributing all kinds of anti-German propaganda.” But his “illegal” activities did not pass unnoticed by the German forces who kept an increasingly close eye on his family.

Ruth added, “His children had been able to leave Belgium for the Netherlands under the pretext of health problems but things were not so easy for Massart and his wife. After several failed attempts they eventually succeeded in crossing the border with the Netherlands near Bree in Limburg on 14 August  1914 under disguise and with the cooperation of an obliging customs officer.” The couple moved to Amsterdam where they were reunited with their children and his valuable collection of information was also smuggled into the Netherlands by means of a suitcase along with clothes for Belgian refugees, says Ruth.

“The whole family soon moved on to England and eventually ended up in the coastal municipality of Antibes in the south of France in autumn 1915.”

While at the start of the war, the local populations in the host countries, including the UK, were favourable to the refugees from « Poor Little Belgium », public opinion gradually turned into mistrust and distance.

As the war dragged on, Belgian citizens lost the goodwill of the locals and began to be considered ‘cushy’ a comfortable distance from the battle fields, while their own sons and fathers were fighting on the front-line.”

Many had expected the war to be over by Christmas but it soon became it that it wouldn’t. Housing and jobs became an issue. Belgians in the purpose built villages in England had running water and electricity while their British neighbours did not.

Towards the end of the war, some 140,000 Belgians were still in the UK and some decided to remain in the country that had welcomed them.But within a year of the war ending on 11 November 1918 more than 90 per cent had returned home.

Brussels is also hosting numerous WW1 related events this weekend.

On 10 and 11 November 2018, the BELvue Museum in Brussels will commemorate the centenary. Talks, guided tours and dramatised history will complement a visit to the exhibition Brussels, November 1918. From war to peace?

The exhibition Brussels, November 1918. From war to peace?, which has attracted more than 4,500 visitors since the end of September, takes visitors back to the tormented final months of war and the direct consequences of the Armistice. Over the commemorative weekend, the BELvue Museum will offer a range of activities on this theme open to the general public.

Two talks by the exhibition’s curators are scheduled on the Saturday, each focussing on a specific topic. A talk in French by the historian Chantal Kesteloot will look back over the tumultuous 10 days between the Armistice and the ‘Joyous Entry’ into Brussels by King Albert I and the Belgian Army on 22 November. And a talk in Dutch by historian Jens van de Maele will focus on efforts to manage the refugee crisis in Brussels in November 1918. Guided tours of the exhibition have also been lined up for Saturday afternoon.

On the Sunday, the Sandra Proes Theatre Company will put on an interactive historical dramatisation. Four actors will play characters from 100 years ago: a housewife turned nurse; a miner from Belgium’s Eastern cantons, who was commandeered into the German Army and became a Belgian citizen after the Treaty of Versailles; the cultured, young pacifist teacher; and the upper-middle-class lady whose son had returned from the war with a disfigured face. The theatre company drew inspiration for its show from historical facts and actual accounts dating from the time. The show, entitled 14-18 and after, is aimed at a broad audience and will plunge visitors back in time by enabling them to interact with flesh-and-blood characters.

The exhibition is also family-friendly, with a book of games available from reception for visiting children aged between 8 and 12.

For more details on WW1 events in Ypres this weekend

The post Commemorations of Armistice Day start on Friday November 9th appeared first on Brussels Express.

A British soldier reads in the Daily Mail a small article about a certain Miss Anny Rutz moving from Oberammergau, a small town in Bavaria, to Slinfold, Sussex, England in order to work there as a domestic servant. The economic crisis and situation in Germany was very bad at that time.

A year before, in 1930, Anny Rutz played the role of Virgin Mary in the world-famous passion play of Oberammergau. At the time she was very famous and she even got offers from Hollywood. She refused these offers so that she could take care of her sick mother.

The last name Rutz drew the attention of Charles, the British soldier, and he decided to get in touch with her. The name reminded him of what happened 13 years ago in Flanders fields, close to Ypres, on the 14th of October 1918.

On this day, on the liberation of Ledegem, around 9am, Charles finds behind a farmhouse a young dying soldier, Wilhelm Rutz. Charles promised him to send his belongings back to his parents in Germany. Unfortunately, he got wounded and was unable to send it back straight away. Also, the pay-book of the German soldier didn’t mention any address where he could send the belongings to. Until he read the newspaper article about Anny Rutz moving from Oberammergau to Slinfold.

So he contacted Anny Rutz and asked her if she lost a brother during the Great War.

Anny was not a relative of Wilhelm, but she knew him and helped Charles to get in touch with the parents. The personal belongings, the iron cross 2^nd class, the pay-book and a photo of his sister who passed away in 1916 due to tuberculosis, were finally sent back to Wilhelm’s parents. News of this story got around the world at the time.

October 2014

After 20 years of research, the historian Jan Vancoillie published the book “Menen Wald”.

Menen Wald is the biggest German cemetery of WW1 in Europe (more than 48.000 German soldiers are buried here).

Because of the beginning of the commemoration ceremonies concerning the end of World War I, this was the ideal moment, not only to publish the book, but also to tell the story of the people from the other side. Wasn’t it Winston Churchill who said that history is always written by the victor?

A number of amateur actors, Peter Vercaemer amongst them, were asked whether they were willing to play a few small stories of the book at the cemetery.

September 2018

And so the city of Ledegem got in touch with Peter Vercaemer who will bring the story of Willi and Charles. Peter introduced the story to the 1418 work-group which, among other things, coordinates the commemorative initiatives around the end of World War I, because this story took place in Ledegem.

After 4 years of intense research by Peter and a number of commemoration ceremonies organized by the municipality of Ledegem, the workgroup 1418 wants to share this story with the people during the last weekend of September. Moreover, through the story the city of Ledegem does not want to merely represent the commemoration of the end of the First World War as a liberation party, not a message from a winner and a loser, not us against them. Through the story, Ledegem wants to use the commemoration ceremonies to call for respect, humanity and responsibility, just as the English soldier goes to the German soldier, in order to keep the peace.

On Friday, September 28, the story of Wilhelm Rutz will be told as it happened on October 14, 1918, through a theater performance. The performance takes place at 7.30 pm in the church of Ledegem (the church was used as a field hospital during the occupation of the German troops)

On Sunday 30 September at 5 pm a peace monument will be inaugurated on the site of the Capellehof, next to the church in the heart of Rollegem-Kapelle. The monument is not only erected for the local population, it also symbolizes humanity, respect, and responsibility as a source of peace, just as the English soldier assisted his German mate. That the knowledge of the historical facts is also important, we also accentuate in our monument to ultimately culminate in the importance of a European unity that preserves peace in the Union through constructive cooperation, today and in the future.

Who thinks of the future thinks of our youth. Also the youth has been involved in the creation of the monument. On the basis of texts, poems, drawings, etc., English, Irish and German children, together with the children of the schools of Ledegem, have shown how they see, feel, understand, describe peace. These peace messages are encapsulated in the monument in a time capsule, where the message will be given to our great-grandchildren to retrieve the messages after 100 years.

The grandchildren and families of the German and English soldier who met on the 14th October 1918, will be present at the inauguration.

More information about the weekend can be found here

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