page_title: Vinkt massacre
section_title: Total number of victims
hierarchical_section_title: Vinkt massacre / Total number of victims
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Vinkt massacre
context_page_description: The Vinkt massacre was a war crime committed by German soldiers in the villages of Vinkt and Meighem in East Flanders on 26–28 May 1940 during the Battle of the Lys. Between 86 and 140 civilians were deliberately killed by Wehrmacht troops from the 337th Infantry Regiment of the 208th Infantry Division, supposedly in retaliation for the Belgian Army's resistance in the village.
context_section_description: Most sources claim between 86 and 140 victims, 86 being the total number of executed victims. The divergence stems from the fact that other historians include the victims in front of the bridge and those 27 killed by the explosion at the church in Meigem. Whereas the exploded grenade on May 25 was almost certainly German, the explosion at the church has usually been attributed to Belgian artillery. However, there remains a controversy over the church explosion, as some victims later claimed they saw German officers throw hand grenades into the church, and all women hostages were taken out of the church just before the explosion - ensuring that all 27 victims of the incident were male.
  A very different picture was painted by the priest who managed to escape on May 27: he claimed to have seen dead women and children, even babies. Since no corpses of women or children were later found, this would imply, if true, that the scene was later cleaned up, and the real death toll of the executions is much higher than the 86 or 140 usually claimed. However, most Belgian historians believe that any additional refugee victims the priest saw, were killed in crossfire, and not intentionally.
  The Vinkt massacre shares some strange similarities with the later massacre at Nemmersdorf (today Mayakovskoye) in East Prussia, where there are similar accusations of embellishment and manipulation after the fact and an attempt was made to include refugees killed in crossfire before a bridge among those executed.
caption: Memorial to the victims of the massacre
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