A Street in Arnhem

📖 The Scoop

Robert Kershaw follows-up his best-selling account of the Battle of Arnhem from German eyes - It Never Snows in September - to focus on the experiences of the Dutch civilians and British and German soldiers in one street, fighting to survive at the heart of one of the most intense battles of World War 2. A Street in Arnhem tells the story of the battle of Arnhem in September 1944 from the perspective of what could be seen or heard from the Utrechtseweg, a road that runs seven kilometres from Arnhem railway station west to Oosterbeek, and which saw virtually every major event during Operation Market-Garden played out in front of its inhabitants.

The book charts the heartbreaking destruction of a well established, exclusive and popular rural community through the eyes of the British, Polish and German soldiers fighting amid the confused and horrified Dutch locals. It portrays a collage of human fears and emotions as ordinary people seek to cope when their street was so suddenly, and so savagely, overwhelmed in a mighty battle not of their making. Robert Kershaw's new research reveals the extent to which most people in this battle, whether soldiers or civilians, saw only what was immediately happening to them and had virtually no idea of what was going on around them. Many original Dutch Dutch, German and English accounts have been unearthed through interviews, diary accounts and letters. Post combat reports have also been discovered charting the same incidents from both sides, as well as giving the Dutch civilian perspective.

This gripping story is incredibly compelling and graphically portrays for readers the dramatic reality of having the street you have lived in peacefully for years engulfed in a major conflict.

Genre: History / Europe / Western (fancy, right?)