BASTOGNE, Belgium-Henri Mignon was only nine during WWII. A young boy, used to going to school and playing with his friends, remembers the day that changed his life almost 65 years ago.
"Germans had occupied our house," Mignon recalled. "The Wehrmacht came first, and they were nervous but correct soldiers. Later an SS DetachA,A!ment came, and they were horrible. They were young, arrogant, brutal and hated even by the other Germans."
Mignon, whose father was a forester, lived in a nice house in the woods with his family in a village about 10 miles from Bastogne, Belgium. When the Germans arrived, they let the Mignon family stay in the house, but the SS ordered the family to sleep on the floor and provide the soldiers with necessities.
"My mother was obliged to cook for them, in return, they gave us food," said Mignon. The house was also used as a German first aid station, and Mignon described horrible imA,A!ages that he, as a young boy, had to witness daily. "Those visuals stay in your mind," he said.
Christmas 1944 was approaching when the SS decided to celebrate, but it wasn't a festive Christmas Eve for the Mignon family. Mignon said the soldiers drank profusely and deA,A!stroyed the furniture, religious pictures and crosses.
A couple of weeks later, on the clear morning of Jan. 15, the Germans left, and as they did so, they took all of the water from the well.
"My father went to pick up clean snow to make a hot beverage, and he received a shrapnel in his chest. He could run home, kissed each of us and passed away," said Mignon.
Mignon said his father was killed by an unidentified shell, either GerA,A!man or American, and an incendiary projectile put their house ablaze.
Before realizing their house was hit, Mignon ran to the cellar where he said the family cried for his father. Then, they heard someone shout, "Hello." It was an SS with his revolver in his hand, seeking out Germans who were hiding and waiting to surrender.
"He stayed there for a long time and then disappeared," said Mignon referring to the German scout.
"Later," said Mignon, "we heard another 'Hello' but this time the shouts came from two Americans who told us our house was on fire." The Americans gave them chocolate and brought them to safety.
Mignon recalled sitting on the hood of the Jeep and passing German POWs on the side of the road who were waitA,A!ing to surrender, and he remembered the good days that followed.
Despite the fact that his father was a casualty of war, Mignon doesn't have any resentment toward AmeriA,A!cans, Germans or the military. He said the experience led him down his own military path, and he became an artillery officer in the Belgian Army.
To this day, he gives tours around the Bastogne area to visitors of all nationalities. In June, he provided a special 65th anniversary tour for members of the Band of Brothers.
His village of Houffalize was levA,A!eled, his home was destroyed and his father was killed, but Mignon said, "For everyone, it was the price to pay to get rid of the Germans."
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