Memorial Hall Leer

On the wall of the Rathaus of Leer a plaque bearing the names of five Groningen resistance fighters who were executed on April 25, 1945 in the vicinity of Leer.

Kornelis Pieter Fielstra
born October 10, 1916 in Baflo

Johannes Gerhardus Kok
born February 13, 1899 in Groningen

Carolus Henricus Hubertus Magermans
born May 19, 1896 in Groningen

Johannes Adrianus Magermans
born March 18, 1922 in Groningen

Johannes Verbiest
born November 19, 1908 to Nieuwolda

On April 21, 1945, the city of Groningen was liberated, they were requested by the Dutch Interior Forces, with a luxury car and a truck on the way to Nieuwe Schans to get people coming back from Germany and were no longer able to walk. They were near the border picked up by a German patrol with the accusation that they reason in German cars and were armed. They were transferred to the prison in Leer and the killer gang of Willie Herold arrived there shortly before. These so called captain had with his group all death and destruction in the camps in the Emsland. To impress the mayor of Leer, who was in his stomach with the five Dutchmen, he let the prisoners be transferred to a Gasthaus where he stayed. A mock trial of barely ten minutes was held in the backyard. The Dutch were then just brought on 25 April in a truck to a lonely spot outside Leern where they had to dig their own grave. The men were in the presence of a few girls from Leer shot and buried.
After Herold the other day was already arrested and had confessed all of his atrocities in the Emsland was the mass grave opened in Leer on June 11, 1945 and were identified as the bodies of five Dutchmen were missing. Their bodies were transferred to Groningen and buried there.