Rotterdam in flames and ruins, May 1940
Blocks of houses burn through the night by the harbour, streets lie buried in rubble, and dead lie side by side in the grass.
Gables and roofs stand black inside towering flames, fire blows across the tram wires, and at night a row of burning houses is reflected in the water of a harbour basin. By day the façades of long streets still stand around empty window holes, floors have collapsed into the roadway, and an iron station roof lies on its platform; from an aircraft, whole blocks show roofless. At the foot of a hedge dead men lie side by side in the grass.
The fires started by the bombs of 14 May 1940 spread across the old centre of Rotterdam; some 25,000 homes and many churches, schools and hospitals were destroyed. The ruins were cleared during the occupation, and after the war the city centre was rebuilt on a new plan.
