‘The Belgian children have been taken away from their homes. They have crossed the sea in a ship. They have landed in a strange new land of people speaking a strange language and been put to sleep in strange beds. While their sorrowing parents think of their lost country, home and livelihood, the little one’s tears are shed for lost playthings. Their parents are perhaps destitute – the recipients of charity.’
The Bystander, 1914.
Germaine Verschoren was nine years old when she and her family fled Belgium on foot, along with thousands of other refugees.
Germaine Madelaine was the middle child of the Verschoren family. She was nine years old when in 1914 her father Prosper was badly wounded fighting with the Belgian Army in the first months of the war. On hearing the news, Germaine’s mother Rachella promptly closed up the house in Belgium and began the arduous journey along with her other two children Albért, twelve, and Alyce, six. The family travelled on foot, through Belgium and into Holland in order to find passage to Scotland where Prosper had been sent to convalesce.
And they were not alone. In all, over 250,000 Belgian refugees escaped ahead of the growing conflict, many of them walking or in horse-drawn carts and traps. In most cases, they fled with what they could carry. In later years Germaine would recall pulling turnips from fields alongside the road, washing them in a nearby stream and munching on them as the family trudged along.
Overall, the Belgian refugees were warmly received in Britain; many local and national funds were established to provide them with food, clothes and necessities. Local committees such as those in Devon and Exeter, worked hard to find temporary and long-term accommodation for those fleeing with nothing. Alice Clapp and Clara Andrew both worked for Belgian Refugee Committees and their stories can be seen elsewhere in the exhibition.
At the end of the war, over 90% of those who had fled to Britain returned to their home country. Prosper Verschoren recovered sufficiently to be relocated south from Scotland to the village of Ottery St Mary, where he and his family settled. They became a popular and integral part of the village community. Germaine’s children still live in Devon.
References
Steel, M., 2016. Belgian Refugee Interviews: Moya Steel Interview. Interviewed by Mary Stephenson. [digital audio file] Ottery St Mary, September 15th 2016.
Verschoren Family Tree [digital image] Belgian Refugee Family Verschoren 1914-1918. DRP/39. Exeter: Devon Heritage Centre.
De Stem uit Belgie, 1916. Nieuws van de “Refugees”. De Stem uit Belgie, January 28th. P.8c. Available at: https://hetarchief.be/nl/media/de-stem-uit-belgie/E1AKjYcQUHRIMJdLhRExjTAe [Accessed on: 04/10/2017]
The Bystander, 1914. Will You Help to While Away the Time of the Little Refugees? 28th October. P.10. Available from: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001851/19141028/011/0010 [Accessed on 18/04/2018]
Images
(n.d.) Alyce and Germaine Verschoren [digital image of photograph] Belgian Refugee Family Verschoren 1914-1918. DRP/39. Exeter: Devon Heritage Centre.
