1944

The Rhine bridge and Arnhems city centre as it looked just before the battle in September 1944. The bridge had just been rebuild after being destroyed during the war actions in 1940!

1945

The destruction after 9 months of warfare was tremendous. The second reconstruction of the bridge within 5 years, on this photograph, is on its way. The ruble cleared, leaving Arnhem a skeleton.

1957

Twelve years later, modern day Arnhem is arising from its ashes. My grandfather had just opened his new butcher shop on the corner of Baker Street and I was 7 years old.

In the Seventies Arnhem tried hard to match new and the restored old. That, at this time, was done in a more considerate manner, then in the previous years, when the rush to recreate living and working space was the one dominating factor.

In the Eighties the Rhine bridge renamed into John Frost bridge was joined by a second, the Nelson Mandela bridge to the West, to link Arnhem North of the Rhine with booming Arnhem South of the river.

1986

The Mandela bridge will be about the only recognizable feature in this photograph in the future. Almost everything to the North will be sacrificed by major cosmopolitan surgery, which was started in 1997 and is to be finished in 2010.