The second evacuation of Wageningen

Some residents are already heading towards Bennekom and Ede. Meanwhile, the Wageningen ferry is shut down on September 24, 1944, and some residents are ordered to leave their homes by the same evening. The Germans inform them that there will be no shooting at the houses, but the evacuation is solely a safety measure. A portion of the patients from the Wageningen hospital are transported to Veenendaal on September 26 using bicycles, hand carts, and farm wagons in a long convoy. The remaining patients are transferred to the basements of the former Laboratory for Tropical Agriculture of the Wageningen Agricultural University - later the Ritzema Bos House - which is converted into an emergency hospital and shelter.

Unexpected help comes from Circus-Variété Boltini. This circus owned by Toni Boltini (real name: Wilhelm Marinus Antonius Akkerman) is stranded in Zeist due to Dolle Dinsdag on September 5, 1944. Toni, his brother Johnny, and circus staff pick up evacuees from Wageningen and Otterlo, among other places. The transport takes place in white-painted circus wagons with the Red Cross symbol, pulled by a tractor. In Zeist, hundreds of evacuees from Wageningen and Arnhem are accommodated. Meanwhile, heavy fighting has been ongoing in Wageningen for days. It's not until October 1, 1944, that the order for a total evacuation of Wageningen comes: everyone must leave the city by six o'clock in the evening. The remaining patients at the Agricultural University are evacuated to hospitals in Veenendaal and Utrecht.

This second evacuation is far from prepared. Much improvisation is needed. Due to the Railway Strike, there are no trains running. Other means of transportation, apart from a few bicycles, are scarce. The majority of evacuees head towards Bennekom and Veenendaal. Employees of the Dutch Red Cross also assist in the transportation and reception of evacuees. Meanwhile, the artillery in the Betuwe remains active. Thanks to a telephone line from the Provincial Gelderse Electriciteits-Maatschappij (PGEM), there is contact with liberated Nijmegen. The German positions are curiously well targeted by the Allies. Members of the resistance, 'spotters', are caught mapping German positions on the Wageningen mountain. The Germans suspect that the Veluwezoom is full of spies. As a result, SS-Obersturmbannführer Walter Harzer orders a strip of land ten kilometers wide to be evacuated, from Arnhem to beyond Rhenen.

In the building of Agricultural Plant Breeding on Dijkgraaf, the deputy mayor, the secretary, and some of the police establish themselves. About one hundred and fifty people (staff and their families) take up residence in the buildings of the Institute for Plant Diseases and the Shipbuilding Experimental Station. At their own risk, they are allowed to stay here after October 1, but on October 22, this group also has to leave for Zeist. The second evacuation of Wageningen this time lasts not a week but eight months. Although Wageningen is liberated on April 17, 1945, there is no one present to celebrate. It's not until mid-May 1945 that evacuated residents are allowed to return home. They find - just like in 1940 - a devastated Wageningen. For the second time in five years, Wageningen begins the reconstruction of the city.