I had to journey each morning on my bicycle from Capellen to Antwerp and return in the evening. In the morning I had to ride against the surge of escaping refugees; in the evening I rode with the tide, as it were. How can I describe the pathetic sights I witnessed during these days of horror? I saw men and women–many far advanced in years; some of them carried young children on their backs, some in their arms; others pushed carts and wheelbarrows and small vehicles of all kinds, which contained these people’s whole belongings, remnants of the wreck of their homes; beds and bedding, furniture and clothing, religious books and articles of piety. In this great moving caravan were cows and goats, horses and sheep, and the ever-faithful dog–all being led away by the refugees–truly a shattered cohort wending its way with bowed heads, drawn faces, weary eyes, haggard and livid. I say it was a terrible, heartrending sight to witness, one that I hope God will prevent me from ever seeing again. I shall never forget one case, more pitiful, perhaps, than all the others. It was that of an old man who was pushing a wheelbarrow in which sat his old wife, crippled and paralyzed. It was night, about 9 o’clock. We invited the old couple to spend the night in our home. During the last week of Antwerp’s resistance, hundreds of refugees would enter the enclosure of our home at Capellen and there improvise for themselves a refuge for the night in the bushes or under the trees. Others, the older men, the women folk and the children, were lodged in the building. Rooms, corridors, garrets, and even the cellars were filled to capacity. On the following morning these poor refugees would start again on their distressing journey towards Holland–the long, sad walk of a whole people leaving behind them their beloved country, their souls tortured by grief and anguish. On Friday, the day Antwerp fell, the German troops entered the city at about 9 o’clock in the morning, and what I relate now was conveyed to me personally by a German officer, who took part in the attack on Antwerp and was billeted in our house for more than three months after the capture of the city. When the Belgian military resistance ended–that is, during the night of the 8th to the 9th of October–the Germans, as I have already stated, continued to bombard the city, but in the morning at 7 o’clock the artillery’s action ceased. Two hours later the order was given to a regiment to pass inside the walls of the city. The Germans thought they would have to fight foot by foot within the walls. For some reason, the opinion prevailed that the whole Belgian army–between 90,000 and 150,000 in number–had concentrated for a last stand within the walls of the city itself.