Tuesday, September 5, 1944, has gone down in history as Dolle Dinsdag [“Mad Tuesday”]. With a message opening with the sentence “Gij weet dat de bevrijding voor de deur staat” [“Thou knowest that liberation is at hand”], broadcast on Radio Oranje [“Radio Orange”] on Sunday evening, September 3, the Netherlands was giddy with the hope of being liberated.

Dutch national socialists fleeing on Mad Tuesday (source: NIOD/WWII Image Bank)The Allied forces liberated Antwerp on September 4. Later that evening, Prime Minister Gerbrandy reported that the allied armies had crossed the Dutch border. Later, it turned out that this report was incorrect, but many Dutch people thought that the end of the war was now close at hand. German occupiers and Dutch collaborators panicked and made a run for it. Owing to the effect that Dolle Dinsdag had, the female prisoners at Vught were sent to Ravensbrück in great haste the next day, while the men were deported to Sachsenhausen.