Ieper (Ypres) is a small province in the west Flanders region of Belgium. It is a historic city. During the middle ages, it was one of the famous Flemish cloth cities, razed to the ground during the First World War. There were hardly any buildings tall as one meter when the entire city was shattered by the German troops. Thus the city was nicknamed ‘Wiper’. Its inhabitants were forced to flee this ‘ghost town’ in 1915, only to return in 1919 to rebuild their city with their memories of the horror.

It was here in this city that the Germans first used chlorine and mustard gas (called ‘Yperite’, from the name of this city) on its enemies, thereby causing thousands of deaths due to asphyxiation and lung tissue damage. The limited transportation and medical facilities of those times further added to the tens of thousands of casualties during the World War.

Flanders FieldMuseum: It is the most famous and a must see monument in Ieper relating to the First World War. It is located in Grote Market (Main Square). It is one of the world’s biggest war museums, located in the rebuilt colossal building Lakenhalle (cloth hall), topped by a 70m high belfry.

The museum got its name from the poem written by a Canadian medical officer Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. It goes as:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Along with the entrance ticket to this museum, you will be provided with an ID bearing the name of a person involved in the war. As you progress through the museum, you can insert this card into the museum’s computer and track the details and war experiences of the given person. Thus the museum provides an interactive display of the battle scenes. It immediately creates an atmosphere of war, with screens displaying soldiers and sounds of bombings and screams.

The museum also displays war ammunitions, clay models of fighting wounded and fallen soldiers, letters of the soldiers to their families and the diaries written by the soldiers.

The museum gives excellent visual and audio clippings of the battlefield, real testimonies from the soldiers and ordinary Ieper residence.

The most emotional feature is the dark room, slowly filling up with smoke, displaying the videos of war scenes accompanied by screams and sounds of bombs. It reminds you of the lethal gas poisoning by the Germans.

You leave the museum with a note that no one wins a war.

Menen Gate: It was built by the British government in the memory of thousands of soldiers from the British Empire who lost their lives. It is a part of the Ieper Salient, which stretches from Langemarck in the North to the Ploegsteert wood in the South.

It was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield. It has a victory arch and panels displaying the names of the missing soldiers from that area.

Every night at 8pm, the policemen close the gate and salutes while the buglers from the Iypre’s fire brigade play ‘The Last Post’. This is done irrespective of the weather conditions. The people staying close to the Gate open their front doors and stand to join the band, paying homage to the brave unknown fallen soldiers from different parts of the world.

Cemeteries in Ieper: There are over 75 Commonwealth military cemeteries for the First World War soldiers spread across Ieper. At the RampartsCemetery, founded in 1915, rests 153 Britons, 11 Australians and 9 Canadians. In 2002, a memorial to the Indian Army was erected to remember the brave soldiers from India at the Ramparts.

At the Ieper’s ReservoirCemetery rests about 2611 fallen soldiers from UK, Australia, India and South Africa.

Ieper now: This city is now called the ‘CITY OF PEACE’. It has close friendship with another war torn city Hiroshima. The former was devastated by chemical warfare while the latter by nuclear warfare. The two cities campaign together for the abolition of nuclear weapons by the year 2020

Cat Festival in Ieper or the “kattenstoet” takes place every three years on the second Sunday of May. It involves the throwing of toy cats from belfry, followed by colourful parade of men dressed as cats and witches.

A trip to this historic city teaches you many lessons about war. This city is a blend of ancient and the modern. You can take back with you the resilient nature of the people of this small province which once reduced to nothing but rubbles sprang back to life. Every museums, monuments and cemeteries speak of the terror inflicted on humans by humans, the greed of mankind and the sacrifices made by the brave soldiers known and unknown from various parts of the world, the doctors, the nurses and the people of this great city. In the end, it conveys one important message – you do not gain anything but only lose in a battle.