Photo is a piece of artwork Remi drew concerning his time held as a war criminal after the war and also from 1953-’55. Has details of his detainment on the reverse. Signed front and back.
Included is a correspondence envelope with Remi’s details ink stamped to the front.
During the Battle of Narva on 3 March 1944, he single-handedly destroyed eleven enemy tanks with a 7.5 cm Pak 40 He was found unconscious and close to death the following day and brought to Swinemünde and eventually Berlin, where he received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross and a congratulatory telegram from VNV leader Hendrik Elias. However, the only Wehrmacht Sondermeldung about Schrijnen’s action only claimed 7 destroyed tanks!!
After the war he returned to Belgium, where he was arrested, tried and symbolically convicted to death. This was immediately commuted to lifelong imprisonment. He was released in 1950 on condition of good behaviour. However, he participated in so called “amnesty marches” (demanding amnesty for those comrades and heroes who had fought on the Eastern Front) which often ended in brawls and scuffles with the police. Flemish volunteers were terrorized by the people of Belgium, beaten, spit upon and degraded. They had had enough and started to defend themselves politically and physically. After one such brawl, in 1953, he was arrested and held in prison for almost two years.
