| Original caption: “Herded together in the cell in Liege are German Gestapo agents arrested after the fall of the city.” Belgian collaborators with the Liege SiPo-SD Aussenstelle (“Branch Office”), captured after the withdrawal of the Nazi German forces from Belgium, stare blankly at the camera. After Liege capitulated on September 7, 1944, these men were arrested and held for trial. Belgium was occupied from June 1940 by a military government administered by the Heer (“Nazi German Army”). The Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo – “Security Police”) and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD – “Schutzstaffel Intelligence Agency”) Nazi Germany used the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) in its occupied territories and at the home front to maintain order and execute the racial policy of the regime. With a head office in Brussels and branches in Antwerp, Ghent, Liège, and Charleroi, the Gestapo was present throughout the Heer (“Army”) occupation of Belgium. Belgian SiPo-SD collaborators tended to have been affiliated with Nationalist or Fascist organizations before World War II. During the occupation, they continued on this path and took the step towards active (military) collaboration. They became members of the Algemeene SS-Vlaanderen, the Vlaamsche Fabriekswacht (“Flemish Factory Guard”), the National Socialist Kraftfahrkorps (NSKK), but especially the Waffen-SS and the Flemish Legion. They were exempt from service in combat because of physical or “mental” issues. They were then deployed back home as auxiliary personnel or guards. If their intellectual capacity and language skills proved sufficient, they were deployed as interpreters at a local Sipo-SD Aussenstelle. The Nazi German agents themselves were not completely up to their task. They lacked the knowledge of the regional languages and circumstances. The help of the local Belgian populace was therefore a necessity. Gestapo torture techniques came to light as Belgian cities were liberated. 1 torture was the size of the cells – 3 feet (less than a meter) wide, 3 feet long, and 3 feet high, requiring the prisoner to crouch but unable to lie down. When mass arrests took place, 40 or 50 prisoners would cram a 9-foot (2.74 meter) by 7-foot (2.1 meter) room. No light or air was allowed. Pregnant women were kicked in the stomach and burned with lighted cigarette butts. Gestapo agents pulled out fingernails; hung prisoners by their feet and beat them with metal-core billy clubs; feet and hands were broken by hob-nailed boots. Built in the 13th century, the Citadel of Liège was demolished and rebuilt several times over the years. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was used as a military barracks by the Belgian Royal Army 12th Line Regiment. Occupied by German soldiers in 1940, the place became a training center for the Garde Wallonne (“Walloon Guard”), a collaborationist paramilitary formation, and a prison where patriots were detained. It is notorious for the Merckem Block, known as Block 24, where numerous political prisoners were incarcerated between 1941 and 1944. Many people were tortured and executed in the Merckem Block. There are 414 graves or cenotaphs dedicated to these victims in the Enclos des Fusillés (“Enclosure of the Executed”), which was declared a National Necropolis in 2021. Besides those executed on the spot, this place also became the final resting place of civilians who died in other places, shot or executed in Liège and the region. 377 Belgians, 10 Luxembourgers, 10 Poles, 10 Russians, 6 French, 1 American, 1 Dutchman, 1 Italian, 1 Spaniard, and 1 Serbian) There are crosses for all, but only 98 people, not including chaplain Voncken, remain buried with the other bodies having been returned to their families. Close to the cemetery is the location of the execution posts. Liège has the largest number of graves of resistance fighters in Belgium. Canon Mathieu Voncken (January 13, 1880 – March 30, 1971) ministered to the condemned. On November 8-9, 1942, Canon Voncken spent the night in the cells, praying and ministering to 12 captured resistance fighters. They were executed by firing squad the next morning. Canon Voncken witnessed the executions of 34 people until the Wehrmacht replaced him with 1 of their chaplains in 1943. Horrified by the Nazis, Voncken joined the Clarence intelligence network founded by Walthère Dewé (July 26, 1880 – January 14, 1944), the great Belgian resistance fighter across 2 world wars, who was killed by the Germans in Brussels. Voncken survived the war and was buried with the patronage of the Belgian Royal Family in the Enclos des Fusillés. The American buried in the Enclos des Fusillés was Technical Sergeant Abe Sofferman (August 29, 1920 – of the 67th Bomb Squadron, 44th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force. Sofferman was shot down on January 29, 1944, and served with a Belgian partisan group for a month. Caught with 9 local operatives in a barn outside Nouville, the Nazi Germans suffered heavy casualties before Sofferman and the 9 Belgians were killed by mortar fire. They were buried in the Enclos des Fusillés, and his body was moved to Henry Chapelle American Cemetery in 1946. The local SiPo-SD collaborators in Ghent, Liège, and Charleroi were prosecuted and convicted in a single, large-scale trial. Only in Antwerp did the Belgian SiPo-SD receive separate trials. Gestapo officers were “nervous and jittery,” fearing to answer for their crimes. The United Kingdom’s Lethbridge Herald wrote on September 13, 1944, “Not a few of them have many serious crimes to answer for.” Today, the Citadel of Liège is owned by the National Defence, but it is managed by the Royal Society of the National Resistance Memorial. Photographer United States Army Technician 4th Class James J. LaFrano Junior (June 14, 1923 – June 3, 1984) of the 162nd Signal Photo Company followed GIs across Europe and was present at the liberation of Belgium. Being a good son, LaFrano wrote his parents often, and his letters were replete with references that would have made all infantrymen envious. His photo team often stayed in houses and chateaus, “living like kings” as they feasted on “plenty of steak and fresh eggs.” At times, he and his fellow photographers were “just like civilians again.” But he knew how lucky they were. “We can go up to the front and then come back,” he wrote. “But the other boys stay till it’s all over.” | |
| Image Filename | wwii0963.jpg |
| Image Size | 804.04 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2667 x 2736 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | October 2, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | Líege |
| State or Province | Wallonia |
| Country | Belgium |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-111-SC-233010 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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