Our good friend Peter Pauwels in Heerlen just sent us his family’s story of Christmas during the harsh winter of 1944, which appears below.
The men of the 111th had been in Heerlen since October, living, as Peter says, all over the city in various types of housing. Below is a photo of my father, Edward Johnson (on the left), and his best friend John Andrews next to a decorated tree of sorts my dad had put up. On the back of the photo he had written, “Some tree, eh what? Inside Small Arms Repair truck…Last year, darling!”
Here is Peter’s story:
Christmas 1944: An unexpected downer
It’s Christmas Day. 2022. The situation in Ukraine reminds me of a story my mother told me. She often recalled how Christmas 1944 turned out differently than people had imagined.
It is December 1944. South Limburg, Netherlands, and of course Heerlen, had been liberated by the Americans in September. The U.S. Army has their vehicles everywhere. They camp in farms and even some houses. This also applied to Sint Barbarastraat 66 (at the time called Dorpstraat), where my mother lives, where her brother Herman and both parents lived, and also my grandfather and grandmother. In and around Palemig there were American tanks and other vehicles everywhere. It was quiet at the front, so the men took it easy. At the Red Cross Rest Center, Heerlen, there was plenty of entertainment available, including cinemas, bars and dance facilities. Everyone assumed that the Germans were pretty much defeated.
Life also went on in Palemig. Mother Ruijters did the laundry, father Ruijters went to work every day at the Oranje Nassau Mine I, where he was supervisor. And for 15-year-old Lies there was enough distraction from the Americans. The house, in particular one of the rooms, was set up as a reporting post for the soldiers who were stationed in and around Palemig. Young men came by every day to deal with administrative matters, such as issuing passes and travel documents. Especially interesting was a typewriter. To the people here, the compact modern-looking devices of American origin looked ‘high-tech’. The Americans taught my mother to type, which sometimes resulted in mischievous texts.
Christmas was coming and many residents of Palemig and Meezenbroek were preparing for this celebration. The presence of the Americans meant that traditional Christmas food would be back to normal. Due to the rationing of the previous years, the meals had been meager. In many families the menu varied in some way: beans with applesauce one day, applesauce with beans the next. Thanks to the coal mines, our region never really suffered from hunger. Anyway, the Americans had more than enough food with them, things we didn’t know at all here. In exchange for chores, such as doing the soldiers’ laundry, families could count on a can of peaches or a sack of flour. And the latter meant that baking could finally be done again. In the Ruijters house, the iron pie plates were already set up to bake as usual. Oh, how they looked forward to a Christmas as usual!
But it was quiet at the front, too quiet. It would soon become apparent that Hitler’s Germany was far from defeated!
When this became known, panic set in. In the middle of the night, the Americans stationed here had to go on trucks to the Ardennes. Everything that had wheels was used. The young soldiers quickly lost the illusion of a quick victory. Residents wondered what was going on. Fear set in. The Germans are coming back!
Finally, at the end of January, thanks to a lack of fuel and the rapid reaction of the Americans, the Germans were driven back behind the borders of their ‘Greater German Reich’. There were many casualties on the German side, but also on the American side. That’s how my mother heard that one of her military friends had lost a leg. Christmas 1944: It turned out differently than expected.
Let’s silently think of all the people who are in a similar situation today, anywhere in the world.
WWII Tracings 
Merry Christmas to all 🎄
Liberation day for Heerlen was 17 Sept. 1944, a day I will never forget, It was Sunday and dad and us four boys went to 10 am mass when all of a sudden all hell broke loose, there was machine gun fire, explosions from mortar rounds that were targeted at German ammunition stock piled on the corners of various streets, ( underground people must have given the yanks info on the location of said stockpiles ). Dad hurried us home on the run and you could hear the whistling sound of bullets all around us, dad got hit in his left arm by some shrapnel and was bleeding pretty good. As soon as we got home mam told us that she had heard that the Americans were on the way in by way of the little village of Welten. Mam got dad’s arm taken care of and we headed for the basement to wait for the liberators. Three German soldiers ended up joining us in the basement because they did not want to fight any more and wanted to surrender, dad told them to leave their rifles upstairs and just join us but to be very quiet about it because he was afraid that the other Germans who had set up defensive lines right across from our house would miss these guys and start looking for them. To make a long story short, shortly an American tank with a bulldozer blade on the front came up the dirt road and our house was one of the first houses liberated in Heerlen. That night we had about 40 American soldiers spent the night in our basement. Our address was Aarweg 19 Heerlen.
Thanks for sharing this, Nick. An amazing story from someone who was there!
My mother and her family were living at Klompstraat 29 during the war. In early December my father…who was a GI in the 84th.. came to town on a pass.. He needed a new watch band.. since he was the only one in his platoon with a working watch..which they shared. He met my mother and grandmother while eating pie outside a bakery. My grandmother invited him back to the house. But they had to send him away for dinner.. because they did not have enough food..and they knew the soldiers were being fed. Later he came back and stayed in one of the bedrooms. The family slept in the cellar… after a stray bullet was found in my mother’s bed. Dad went back to the front the next day after exchanging addresses. They did not hear back from him and wondered what had happened. On Jan 11 he was severely injured near Samree Belgium. They ended up corresponding for 7 years before getting married in ’51.
What a wonderful story! Thank you for sharing with us. Are you in the States or in Europe? I assume your mother came to the US. when she married your father, just as my mother did after the war?