The Spook trains were the name given to the trains that in May 1940, during World War II, sent internally "hostile" Belgians (or foreigners) to France, away from the front lines after the German Army pushed up. / p>
When the German army unexpectedly pushed up after 10 May 1940, tens of thousands of Belgians were chased. After Liege hit the foot on May 12, the roads in northern France became quite crowded with citizens of all types of means of transport in flight for the Nazi army. The Belgian government members also felt the hot breath in the neck of the oppressive Germans, and on that day Walter Ganshof van der Meersch telegraphed to the local government and police stations that the administratively-internally hostile Belgians and foreigners had to be taken away from the front lines by trains, buses and lorries.
Transport to France in primitive conditionsFrom the Belgian cities of Antwerp, Brussels, Liege, Bergen, Tournai, etc. thousands of interns were placed in trains, usually ordinary closed freight trains. They were guarded by Belgian soldiers who had to guide them to the final stop. These trains, Trains Fantômes or Ghost trains, as they were mentioned later, started to slow down and the conditions in the closed freight wagons (with sometimes more than 50 interns) were certainly not ideal: without sanitation, water or food the internates try to survive the journey. A ghost train that had left Brussels towards Orléans (450 kilometers further) was on its way seven days. Some drank their own urine in the absence of water and many prisoners died on their way.
The further the Spook trains hit France, the more hostile the mood of the population was, among other things, the text "Parachutists! Espions! 5th column!" The locals thought they were spies and landlords and at the sanitary facilities many were battled and kicked by their guards, the population or passing columns of French soldiers. Uncertain fate in French hands
Beyond the French border, the interns fell outside the control of the Belgian government. The French drove the Ghost trains to southern France, where former detention camps for Spanish Republicans were considered suitable to include those called parachutists, spies and fifth colony Belgians. By swift Germans, the Belgian government and parliamentarians also fled, leaving most members between 15 and 28 May 1940 to France, where they formed a provisional cabinet in Limoges.
A few weeks later Limoges took steps to release Belgian inmates again. That could not happen until France had fallen (22 June 1940) and the Germans reluctantly consented to release the Belgians. Blood bath in Abbeville Bibliography
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