Hof van Aurora

The first aerial bomb was dropped here on 13 October 1914. Yet this site, near the former barracks of Bruges, is better known as 'the Wall of Death'. Bullet indents testify even today to the ruthless executions that the German court-martial or Feldgericht performed here during the First World War.

Fifteen men and women were sentenced to the firing squad for alleged active assistance to the opponent and espionage. Two of them, Anna De Beir and Ulysse Knapen, were given grace at the very last minute. That is how they managed to escape the bullets which put an abrupt end to the life of thirteen others.

After the war, 'the Wall of Death' became a place of remembrance ‘the place of those who were executed'. It is impossible to forget the horrors of the war here! You can visit the place in the compound of the Bruges courts (Kazernevest 3) on weekdays between 8.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m.

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