13/06/2026
American 20th Armoured Division's liberation of Laufen Internment Camp.
The following are extracts from an interview with Maurice Hill on 13th June, 2006:
"We were sitting there this one particular day, this lovely day May 4th it was, about 2 o’clock it was and we heard the news and suddenly looking out of the window we saw this row of vehicles going past and we saw these helmets and suddenly realised they weren’t German helmets. It was the Americans. Of course, they saw the building and they came straight in. There was a German general in the camp at the time and they soon arrested him and we were all free. We just wandered out onto the street like yocals looking around at the vehicles and tanks and half tracks and all these Americans, you know. We said to them, did you know we were here and they said no we didn’t and we were given orders that if there was a shot was fired from the village we were to just open fire. He said, your building being the biggest in the village would have been the first to go. We thought thank god nobody fired from the village. And that was the end of our two and a half/three years’ imprisonment.
"Then of course we had to wait to be taken back to England. Well I didn’t want to just be hanging around so the Americans asked for volunteers, for drivers to help them with their convoys because they were moving displaced persons. There were so many displaced persons from all over the country and all over Europe who had to be moved."