Fokkemmal, the Dutch padre

About: A Dutch padre in hiding who told Murphy, while Murphy was hidden in the Barneveld district in 1944, that his real name was "Fokkemmal" and his underground name Brandt. ◐ Possibly the "Reverend Vogema (alias Dr. Brand)" of Jacques Vanhaelen's account of the Veerman family, though a son of Jacob Veerman's remembers a minister and a doctor Brand as two men (his memory); ⚠︎ who he was is not known.

Unit or role: A padre in hiding, by Murphy (page A2); a reverend in hiding, by Jacques Vanhaelen's account of the Veerman family (October 2026).

Where: "Barneveld", by Murphy, with no place more exact; ◐ while Murphy was hidden at the Veerman farm, Klein Achterveld, in Barneveld municipality (below).

Evidence: ⚠︎ Murphy's handwritten page A2 and its typed copy; ◐ the written account of the Veerman family by Jopie Veerman's son Jacques Vanhaelen, sent to Stewart in October 2026 (family knowledge); what a son of Jacob Veerman's, who is living, remembers, passed on by Jacques Vanhaelen in his emails of 16 and 18 October 2026 (private correspondence, recorded in the family's folder under sources/).

I stayed in Barneveld with a very nice Family; they were so grateful how we had come to help them; They were really risking everything. There was a Dutch Padre who was also hiding from the ROT MOFF (DUTCH hate word for the Gerries) He said Tom I must speak with you in private. (This was his story.) My Brother went to America and I always wondered why he changed his name; {he said my Underground name is Brandt, the name my Brother adopted in America} but here is my real name FOKKEMMAL, I laughed a bit, then he said is it so funny I said, OH YES. it would go down well in Glasgow.

— Tom Murphy, his handwritten page A2 · undated · the page

The typed copy of the same passage, in the set that gives his age as "78 on 11th November 1998", has "Fokkemmal" and, for the underground name, "Brandi" (typed pp. 4–6; both read on the scans). The page gives no date, and does not say where the padre was hiding or whether it was in the same house.

◐ The family on the page is very probably the Veermans: the typed set goes on "On leaving Barniveld, Jo Verman's uncle wishedme luck and gave me a revolver" (sic, the typing runs words together) (typed pp. 4–6), and His own account, checked matches the "very nice family" to them (on Hardy's and the Neuengamme record, neither of which says "Barneveld"). Murphy and James Hardy were hidden at Jacob Veerman's farm from 25 November 1944, for 30 days by the family's own table (28 by the dates here) (the family's form for the Americans, 1946, p. 3), and left on 23 December (Hardy's report). The farm, Achterveldseweg 34, ◐ was in Barneveld municipality: Barneveld's war-damage claims list of 18 November 1947 has a "Wed. J. Veerman" at that address (the list, p. 1). So ◐ Murphy met the padre in that month, if the family is theirs; he does not say where. (He was also in or beside Barneveld municipality on 7 and 25 November, but stayed with a family only at the Veermans'.)

◐ Jacques Vanhaelen, the son of Jopie Veerman, writes of his grandfather Jacob's work in the war that the well-known contacts from that time were Jan Dijkstra, Gijs ("Sijkveld") and a Reverend Vogema, alias Dr. Brand, a mayor from Germany in hiding who spoke fluent English and regularly consulted with the hidden pilots (his written account of the family, sent to Stewart in October 2026; family knowledge). "Gijs Sijkveld" is very probably Gijs van Zijtveld, who brought Murphy and Hardy to the farm (the family's form, p. 3).

A son of Jacob Veerman's, who is living and was a boy on the farm in 1944, has had his memories passed on, through his daughter and Jacques Vanhaelen, in emails of 16 and 18 October 2026 (private correspondence, recorded in the family's folder under sources/). By his memory:

• the Veermans' neighbours were a family called Fokkema (18 October) and a minister (16 October), and they too hid people; the two messages are separate, so ◐ the minister is one of the Fokkemas;
• a doctor called Brand, who had been politically active in Germany before the war and had fled to the Netherlands, took the shrapnel out of Murphy's head, and came often to the Veerman farm because he spoke good English.

Murphy's own pages have the wound, "shrapnel in my head" from a German tank's 88 mm round while he was sniping (the pages before it are Arnhem; his memoir, p. 8), and say of treatment only that he had "shotgun wounds to my head and, for which I got no treatment from the Germans" (his notebook). Neither names a doctor.

◐ Possibly one man. Murphy's padre, Jacques Vanhaelen's reverend and the son's doctor are three descriptions, from two sources:

• One man: Murphy has a Dutch padre in hiding, real name "Fokkemmal", underground name Brandt (page A2). Jacques Vanhaelen's written account has a Reverend "Vogema", alias Dr. Brand, a mayor from Germany in hiding, who spoke fluent English and consulted with the hidden pilots. Read together, the padre and the reverend are both men in hiding who went by Brand(t).
• Two men: the son's memory, which Jacques Vanhaelen passed on, has neighbours called Fokkema, and a minister among them, and separately a Doctor Brand, a German refugee who spoke good English and came to the farm.

That is three accounts: Murphy's pages; the son's own memory, as a boy on the farm, which Jacques Vanhaelen passed on; and Jacques Vanhaelen's written account of the family, which is his own knowledge of it. Only Murphy's is outside the family.

"Vogema" is ◐ a garbling of the same name, by whoever passed it down (our reading): on 21 October 2026 Open Archieven has no record of the surname and Delpher's newspapers no hit tying it to Barneveld or Achterveld (12 other hits, 1905–1954, by title mostly shipping and trade-fair items, with a 1927 court report, a 1915 war report and an advertisement; not read) (the search; the sweep), and the son's "Fokkema" and Murphy's "Fokkemmal" are close to each other.

Against the one-man reading: a German refugee, a mayor and a doctor do not fit a Dutch minister. Jacques Vanhaelen or the uncle may have run two men together, a minister of the neighbouring farm and a refugee doctor called Brand. Nothing held settles which.

⚠︎ Not known. The one candidate found is weak:

• Ds. Jan Fokkema (Arum, 1 February 1893 – Amersfoort, 27 January 1966), Hervormd minister at Delft from 7 May 1937 to 1 September 1946, a reserve army chaplain from 1938 to 1 January 1940 and an army chaplain at the Grebbeberg in May 1940 (parlement.com).
  • He "Zat tijdens de bezetting enige tijd ondergedoken" (was in hiding for some time during the occupation) (same).
  • The Museum Hoeksche Waard, on his eldest son, has "Zijn vader moest meermalen onderduiken wegens ‘opruiende’ preken" (his father had to go into hiding several times because of "seditious" sermons) (the museum's page).
  • After the war he sat on the councils of Delft (1946–1950) and Ede (1953–1962) (parlement.com).
• No source found puts him in the Barneveld or Achterveld area, or gives where he hid, and his parish was Delft. A brother in America is not recorded for him in what is held.

Searched, with nothing found (21 October 2026, recorded with the method in the search's notes):

• Delpher's newspapers for "ds. Fokkema" with Achterveld, Barneveld and Leusden, for Fokkema with predikant, for "Vogema", and for a doctor Brand or Brandt at Achterveld, Barneveld or Leusden: nothing (the notes give no date range).
• Open Archieven for Fokkema at Barneveld, Leusden, Achterveld and Stoutenburg: no record.
• The Americans' helper files: three Fokkema files, all far from the Veluwe, and no Vogema; the "Georg Brandt" found is the alias of an evader in Delden.
• The British index of Dutch helpers: "Father Fokkemal" not found, by OCR in an earlier sweep (26 September 2026), which the notes call not proof; Fokkema, Vogema and Brand(t) were not searched for (the index's notes).
• R. Currelly, "The Dutch Underground in Barneveld" (Canadian Military History, 1995), built from 1945 interviews with the Barneveld district commander, names no individuals (the notes on it).

• The name: "FOKKEMMAL" in Murphy's hand and "Fokkemmal" typed (A2; typed); "Vogema" in Jacques Vanhaelen's written account; "Fokkema" for the neighbours in the son's memory.
• The alias: "Brandt" in Murphy's hand, "Brandi" in the typed copy; "Dr. Brand" in Jacques Vanhaelen's account; "Doctor Brand" in the son's memory.
• What he was: a Dutch padre, by Murphy; a reverend and a mayor from Germany, by Jacques Vanhaelen's account; a German refugee doctor, by the son's memory, which has the minister among the neighbours as a separate person.
• Where Murphy was hidden: ⚠︎ the son remembers Murphy as hidden at the neighbours' farm and coming often to the Veerman farm, where English was spoken. Hardy's report of January 1945 has the two of them at Jacob Veerman's farmhouse for a month (Hardy), and the family's own form of 1946 lists them as hidden there (p. 3).

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