ALLEGED GERMAN OUTRAGES

87
NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER. BELGIAN ARMY
When we entered Hofstade in August last, or some village near to d 22
it, a girl of about 18 or 19 years of age complained to me and my
comrades (four) that she had been violated by several German soldiers
for a period of about two hours before we entered the village on the
threshold of a house in full daylight and in view of villagers. She
had been stripped of all clothing but her chemise and had bled freely
from the private parts. When I saw her she was covered only with a
chemise and skirt and I did not see any blood. She appeared to be
very dejected and was weeping bitterly.
BELGIAN SOLDIER.
I saw evidence of German atrocities between Malines and Hofstade,
in a house on the high road between these two places. I saw a woman
with breasts and hands cut off. The body was lying just inside the
house, which was an inn. I do not know who the woman was. It
was between 24th and 25th August. The Germans had been through
this place the week before, but had been beaten back. There were
several houses in the neighbourhood. I do not know the name of the
place. Everything in the inn appeared to be broken. I also saw the
body of a youth, about 20. Both legs were cut off. The body was
quite close to that of the woman.
BELGIAN REFUGEE.
At the end of August the first engagement between the German
and Belgian troops took place, and the Germans retreated. As they
did so they burned all the houses in Draes-straat, Hofstade. The
church, which was in the same street, was not put on fire, but the
Germans shot at the windows. I saw the houses burning.
The Germans on a Tuesday morning at the end of August went
into a house in the Chaussee de Tervueren, about 150 metres from
the church, and put the house on fire. The inhabitants fled, and
the mother of the family, a woman of about 65, was taken out of the
house, and was killed by one of the German soldiers with a thrust
from a lance. I saw the funeral of this woman, but I did not see
the woman killed. Her son told me that his mother had been killed.
I was not informed of the name of the regiment to which the German
soldiers belonged.
BELGIAN SOLDIER.
I was at Hofstade, the Germans were retreating, we were advancing a 25
near the headquarters of the Gendarmerie. I saw a woman about 45
years old and a boy of about 9 who had been struck with a bayonet
several times, both in the face an^l in the body, both the boy's hands
were cut off at the wrist, he was kneeling on the ground, one hand
cut off was on the ground, the other hanging by a bit of skin.
SERGEANT IN BELGIAN ARMY.
I was serving with my regiment at Hofstade on the 25th August. d 26
We were driving the Germans out of Hofstade. I went into a house on
the left-hand side of the main road from Malines to Brussels. I
there saw the body of a woman lying on the floor. Both, breasts were
cut off. There was also the body of a child lying close to the other
body. Some of the limbs had been cut off. It was either both arms
and both legs or both hands and both feet. I do not remember which.
On the following day at Elewyt, a village a little further on, in a private
house I saw a man and woman lying on the floor who had been bayoneted
all over their bodies. The woman was dead and the man still living.