Evening star., 1939-10-27
Street in Dutch Border Town
Extends Into Germany
I Holland Residents Stick to Sidewalk
! As Aochen People Use Middle of Rood
By THOMAS r. HENRY,
Star Stan CORRESPONDENT,

BY THOMAS r. HENRY,
Star Stan Correspondent
: vAALZ. Holland (By MaiD.-The
hed-haired girl leans over the newly
painted red-and-black steel barrier
and looks wistfully across 10 yards
Of paved road into Holland.
Over her head a wild, rainy Oc-
tober wind flaps the f1ag-faming
red with a black swastika IN the
center and black eagle In the
upper right-hand corner. 1t is the
var flag of the Reich. The black
eagle constitutes the difference be-
tween the banners of war and peace
The German sentry pauses mo-
rnent to talk to the girl Over the
hill behind her comes the smoke
from the chimneys of a chocolate
factory on the edge of Aachen.
Two hundred yards to the east
ward another lone sentry, green
helmeted and with rifle and fixed
bayonet over his shoulder. walks
silently along the top Of the ridge.
Just below him are echeloned rows
Of concrete piles, four deep, painted
grass-green, strung with barbed
wire, spic-and-span in their new
ness. So far as the eye can see they
are stretched along the face of the
ridge. broken only by concrete gun
emplacements. Four or five bands
Of laborers toll leisurely with rakes
and spades, smoothing the ground
In front of the barber wire. Just
across the road a green-uniformed
German customs officer accompanied
by q big dog scowls-both dog and
man-over the border.
Such is the Seigfried line in it's
newest extension-as near as one
can approach it without running a
fair chance of being shot here where
the Province of Limburg forms a
narrow wedge between Germany
and Belgium and within few miles
OF the point where the German
hordes first broke into Belgium in
1914.
vaalz Street in Germany.
Vaalz is spic-and-span Dutch
town of 5000 farmers and textile
workers-really a suburb of Aachen.
The outlying houses Of the big
Rhineland city extend to within half
a mile of Vaalz and in ordinary times
workmen pass freely back and forth.
Lots of the Vaalz people used to
work in Aachen. The buildings Of
the Limburg town, in fact, stretch
over the border.
Now there is queer situation.
The last street in Vaalz is in Ger
many. The sidewalk, however, is
Dutch. The Dutch walk on the
sidewalk. the Germans walk in the
middle Of the street.
That woman is German and this
one is Dutch" said the Dutch GUS
toms officer as he pointed to two
women walking along almost side
by side but not speaking, although
they probably were old neighbors.
"See. one stays on the sidewalk. the
other sticks to the street. That's
how to tell them apart"
Visitors in Vaalz are given the
freedom of the town so long as they
don't step off the sidewalk in this
particular direction, That would be
a decided breach of neutrality if the
sharp-eyed Reich customs officer
happened to notice it. Six inches
into the road and you are in Ger
many The sidewalk ends abruptly
200 yards down a little side street
leading off the main street of Vaalz.
The macadamized road continues.
The end of the sidewalk is the
German line again.
Town Is Sleepy Place.
It is possible, however, to 60 a
couple OF hundred yards further into
Germany and still stay on Dutch soil
The young customs ofi1cer led the
way across a wire fence and through
a succession of mud puddles to the
town dump, the accumulation of
rusty tin cans and automobile
tenders which has been piling up for
two decades. 1t now stands about
20 feet high. A yard on either side
of it is Germany. Below it flows
little nameless brook, across which
is the green meadow Of some Ger
man farmer. There is an irresistible
human impulse to kick rusty tin
cans lying about loose. 1t is shared
by visitors and the urchins of Vaalz.
If the visitor happened to be, let
us say Turk Edwards, the tin can
would bounce against the Siegfried
line.
1t is colorful contrast here where
the Meuse comes out of the hills
to flow placidly through the Dutch
lowlands. Vaalz might be town in
central Pennsylvania. little finger
of the United States sticking into
Germany. 1t is a sleepy place, its
windows filled with advertisements.
1t is apple picking time around
Vaalz. The hills about town on the
Dutch side are covered with Or
chards. Boughs bend under the
weight of the fruit. There are big
piles of red apples on the ground
waiting to be sorted. The cellar WIN
dows are being banked for the
winter. Altogether one gets a
charming pastoral atmosphere here
in these Dutch highlands where
rolling, wooded hills are in such
striking contrast to the fiat canal
intersected landscape ordinarily as
ISOLATED with the Netherlands.
But the hills continue to rise, the
apple orchards end, the pastoral at
mosphere comes to an abrupt stop
across the nameless brook with the
ugly, menacing green lines of con-
crete pillars-anti-tank defenses-
along the ridge above it. They
throw ugly shadows over this mar
row, highly Americanized finger Of
Holland east of the Meuse. 1t is
short way from here to the Mosel.
Just a few miles beyond the ridge
is Der Eifel," the mountainous
country north of the Mosel where
regiments of the 89th and Goth di-
visions in the Army of Occupation
were billeted in the first half of
1919. Today there Eifel is an i'm
penetrable land with this new Sec
tor Of the Siegfried Line in front Of