''Cinema Rex'' was a cinema located at De Keyserlei 15 in

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

, Belgium. It opened in 1935 and was designed by Leon Stynen, a Belgian architect, modeled after large American movie theatres. On 16 December 1944 (the first day of the Ardennes Offensive), at 15:20, a

V-2 rocket The V2 (), with the technical name ''Aggregat (rocket family), Aggregat-4'' (A4), was the world's first long-range missile guidance, guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the S ...

fired from The Netherlands ( Hellendoorn) by the SS Werfer Battery 500 directly landed on the roof of the cinema during a showing of '' The Plainsman''. There were approximately 1,100 people inside the cinema and the explosion killed 567 people including 296 Allied servicemen (194 further servicemen were injured) and 11 buildings in total destroyed. Up to 74 Belgian children were killed too.. It took nearly a week to dig all the bodies out of the rubble. It was the single highest death total from a single rocket attack during the war. Following the attack all public performance venues were closed and the town council ordered that a maximum of 50 people were allowed to congregate in any one location. The theatre was re-built in 1947 but closed in 1993 and was demolished in 1995.

References

* Buildings and structures in Antwerp V-weapons Cinemas in Belgium Buildings and structures completed in 1935 Buildings and structures destroyed during World War II Buildings and structures demolished in 1995 Man-made disasters in Belgium Collapsed buildings and structures December 1944 in Europe 1944 murders in Belgium Battle of the Bulge 1944 disasters in Belgium Attacks on cinemas Children killed in World War II by Nazi Germany Mass murder in 1944 20th-century mass murder in Belgium 1944 in film Child murder in Belgium War crimes in Belgium Building bombings in Belgium Attacks on buildings and structures in 1944 Crime in Antwerp {{WWII-stub

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Further reading