Memorial Derk van Assen

Memorial to commemorate Derk van Assen, executed by Germans on 14 September 1943. Derk van Assen was involved with the resistance and helped Jews and pilots.

Derk van Assen and Berendje Grolleman

Both were born in Hasselt in Overijssel. They married there in 1918.
They then moved to Maastricht, where Derk worked as a bailiff for direct taxation. Derk and Berendje had no children.
In Maastricht, Derk was an elder with the Christian Reformed Church. He was also the national chairman of the Christian trade union for tax officials.

Almost from the beginning of the war in 1940, Derk and Berendje were actively involved in the resistance.
They arranged for Jews to flee to other countries. In collaboration with resistance groups from Maastricht and the South Limburg mining area, allied pilots were kept out of the hands of the occupying forces. In addition to the distribution of illegal magazines such as Vrij Nederland and Trouw, they played a role in the merger of hiding organizations in the city of Maastricht.
All these activities did not go unnoticed by the German occupiers.
Through German infiltrations and betrayals, the German Sicherheitsdienst obtained evidence of their many illegal activities.
This led to the arrest of Derk and Berendje on 24 July 1943 in their home at Cannerweg 124A. At that time they offered shelter to a Jewish couple and were caught red-handed during their arrest.

Derk was interrogated for weeks by the Sicherheitsdienst in the detention center in Maastricht. However, he did not release anything about the resistance people with whom he had collaborated. The Maastricht tax office offered the Germans in vain 40,000 guilders to buy Derk free. After an attempt by resistance people to liberate Derk, he was taken on September 14, 1943, early in the morning, to the Schadijkse woods in Meterik. Because he continued to refuse to provide information to the Sicherheitsdienst, he was shot on the spot.
His body was dug up here in 1946. After identification, he was reburied in his birthplace Hasselt. The municipality of Horst had a memorial cross placed in 1946. For many years this cross has been maintained by the Crosses and Chapels Foundation of Horst a / d Maas.
In 1963 the remains of Derk found a final resting place on the Field of Honor of the Stichting Oorlogsgraven in Loenen on the Veluwe.

After temporary detention in camp Vught, Berendje was deported, without any form of trial, to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. On February 18, 1945, she died of exhaustion, in miserable circumstances. The location of her last resting place is unknown.

Other places with tangible memories of Derk van Assen and Berendje van Assen-Grolleman:
- General cemetery in the Van Stolkspark in Hasselt: Derk and Berendje memorial cross
- Field of honor of the Oorlogsgraven Foundation in Loenen: last resting place of Derk, box E, no. 25
- Cannerweg 124A in Maastricht: Stumbling stones in the sidewalk
- Tax office Maastricht: a monument
- Street name in Maastricht: Van Assenstraat
- Ravensbrück concentration camp: mention of the name Berendina van Assen-Grolleman
- Yad Vashem Jerusalem: Hall of Names

Do you have more information about this location? Inform us!

Source

• Text: Wiel Steegs
• Photos: Jeroen Koppes (1, 2), Wiel Steegs (3, 4, 5)