Jan Verhoef

De Glind 7 Dec 1916 – Wöbbelin 4 Mar 1945

About: Joannes Henricus Johannes "Jan" Verhoef, the elder son of Cornelis Verhoef of the Klettersteeg at Achterveld, was taken from the farm by the SD in December 1944 with his brother Johan. He died at the Wöbbelin camp on 4 March 1945, three days before Johan.

Unit or role: A farm labourer, unmarried, Catholic: Landarbeiter on his German death certificate, Landbauer on his Amersfoort card, landbouwer in Barneveld's death register (the certificate; the card; the register). The Oorlogsgravenstichting has "Landarbeider, lid verzet" (farm labourer, member of the resistance) (the page); ⚠︎ no source says what resistance work he did (below, Where the sources disagree).

Where: His parents' farm on the Klettersteeg at Achterveld, in Barneveld municipality, in the hamlet "De Fliert" (the booklet, p. 31), Klettersteeg 14 on his Amersfoort card; then the Willem III barracks at Apeldoorn, Kamp Amersfoort (prisoner 10361), Neuengamme (prisoner 70574) and Wöbbelin (the card; the Neuengamme list; Huurdeman).

Evidence: ✓ his German death certificate; his Amersfoort card; the Neuengamme list; the War Graves Foundation's file; Huurdeman; the Achterveld booklet, pp. 31–35; Digitaal Monument Neuengamme

With his brother Johan Verhoef and their father Cornelis Verhoef; the whole round-up is on Piet Veenendaal's page.

✓ He was born at De Glind, in Barneveld municipality, on 7 December 1916, the son of Cornelis Verhoef, landbouwer, 45, and Rengertje Blom, and registered as Joannes Henricus Johannes (Barneveld births 1916, deed 300) (the birth record, index only). His German death certificate and his Amersfoort card give the same day and Barneveld as the place (the certificate; the card). His brother Johan was born at De Glind on 3 March 1919 (Johan's birth record). The village booklet gives the family three children, "Jan, Johan en Riek", and has their mother as "Regina Blom" (the booklet, p. 31); his mother called him "mijn oudste zoon" (my eldest son) (her note).

In the war the household took in people in hiding. Huurdeman writes that "Verhoef had doorlopend onderduikers in huis" (Verhoef always had people in hiding in the house) (Huurdeman). The booklet's unsigned account has seven of them, "waaronder minstens twee ondergrondse strijders en één Jood" (among them at least two underground fighters and one Jew), most under false names (the booklet, p. 31). Cor van de Burgwal, the son of his sister Rieka, says in the booklet's interview that the family sheltered Jewish people in hiding and resistance men "maar maakten zelf, voor zover bekend, geen deel uit van het verzet" (but were not themselves, as far as is known, part of the resistance) (p. 33).

No source puts him with Murphy. By James Hardy's MI9 report, Murphy and Hardy stayed at Jacob Veerman's farm near Achterveld "for a month", until they were told to move on "At about 1400 hours on 23 Dec" 1944 (Hardy); the Veerman family's own list of 1946 has Murphy there from 25 November (the list, p. 5). Every date given for the raid on the Klettersteeg, 16, 18 or 19 December 1944 (below), falls inside that stay.

Why the SD came. Huurdeman ties the raid to the old billets of a Special Air Service team under the Belgian Gilbert Kirschen ("Captain King") at De Glind. After the SD arrested the RVV leader Jan Thijssen, they found the team's former address, raided Piet Veenendaal's farm on 15 December 1944 and took Veenendaal; "Onder zware druk gaf Piet Veenendaal de naam van Joop Rothuizen door die bij Cornelis Verhoef aan de Klettersteeg bij Achterveld zat ondergedoken" (under heavy pressure Piet Veenendaal gave the name of Joop Rothuizen, who was hiding at Cornelis Verhoef's on the Klettersteeg near Achterveld) (Huurdeman). Huurdeman's text on the Neuengamme memorial says Veenendaal gave "een aders" [adres] (an address) of Joop Rothuizen (Digitaal Monument Neuengamme). The SD brought Veenendaal with them:

On 19 December the SD took the heavily bleeding Piet Veenendaal to Cornelis Verhoef. In this raid the farm was surrounded by five men with rifles at the ready, after which two or three of them forced their way into the house. Two people in hiding ran away, and one of them, probably Joop Rothuizen, got away. The other was his brother or cousin Jan Rothuizen of De Glind, and he was arrested. The sons living at home, Jan and Johan, were arrested too. The sick Cornelis Verhoef was not arrested. A few months later, in March 1945, he would die of grief. In the same month, without his knowing it, both his sons died in a concentration camp.

Dutch originalOp 19 december nam de SD de hevig bloedende Piet Veenendaal mee naar Cornelis Verhoef. Bij deze inval werd de boerderij omsingeld door vijf man met het geweer in de aanslag, waarna twee of drie van hen het huis binnen drongen. Twee onderduikers vluchtten weg, waarbij er één – vermoedelijk was dat Joop Rothuizen – kon ontkomen. De ander was zijn broer of neef Jan Rothuizen uit De Glind en hij werd gearresteerd. Ook de thuiswonende zoons Jan en Johan werden gearresteerd. De zieke Cornelis Verhoef werd niet gearresteerd. Hij zou enkele maanden later, in maart 1945, van verdriet overlijden. In dezelfde maand stierven, zonder dat hij dat wist, zijn beide zoons in een concentratiekamp.

— José Huurdeman · Ondergronds in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (2019), via the Oorlogsgravenstichting · the text

Not finding Joop Rothuizen, the SD "arresteerde daarom alle jonge mannen" (therefore arrested all the young men): Jan Rothuizen, the sons Jan and Johan, and across the road Laurens Liezenberg, in hiding at Thiemen Verhoef's (Huurdeman). The Neuengamme memorial's page on Liezenberg calls Thiemen "broer van" (brother of) Cornelis, and Doetinchem Herdenkt's entry on Jan calls him "zijn oom Thiemen Verhoef" (his uncle Thiemen Verhoef) (Digitaal Monument Neuengamme, on Liezenberg; Doetinchem Herdenkt).

The village's two accounts. The booklet the Achterveld parish made in 2025 tells the raid twice (the booklet).

• The unsigned account (p. 31) is headed 18 December 1944, but its text has the raid "tegen het middaguur Maandag 16 December 1944" (towards midday, Monday 16 December 1944).
  • A German car drove into the yard, and five soldiers ran into the house with rifles and revolvers drawn. Of two men in hiding who ran, one dodged the shots fired at him and got away; Jan Rothuizen tried to hide under the hen roost and was driven into the front room.
  • Veenendaal was there, handcuffed, beaten out of the car. The Germans were looking for Joop Rothuizen, who was away on resistance work.
  • "De Duitsers nemen als gevangenen mee Johan en Jan Verhoef, Jan Rothuizen en vijf onderduikers wier namen onbekend zijn gebleven" (the Germans take away as prisoners Johan and Jan Verhoef, Jan Rothuizen and five people in hiding whose names have stayed unknown).
• Cor van de Burgwal's interview (p. 33) dates it 18 December 1944.
  • Veenendaal, "De ernstige gewonde Piet Veenendaal" (the badly wounded Piet Veenendaal), was brought in the car "om de personen te identificeren" (to identify the people); Joop Rothuizen was not there.
  • Everyone in the house, the women too, was driven into the living room. The SD took "de twee zonen Jan en Johan Verhoef, en in ieder geval een verzetsman Jan Rothuizen" (the two sons Jan and Johan Verhoef, and at any rate a resistance man, Jan Rothuizen), with Liezenberg from Thiemen's farm.
  • His mother, his sister and his sick father stayed behind, and the day after the raid the SD came back and took "het paard, voedsel en zelfs de varkens" (the horse, food and even the pigs).

All the men taken on the Klettersteeg went first to the Willem III barracks at Apeldoorn. There the brothers' roads parted: Johan went to De Kruisberg at Doetinchem, and "Jan Verhoef belandde eerste in Kamp Amersfoort alvorens hij naar Neuengamme werd gedeporteerd" (Jan Verhoef ended up first in Kamp Amersfoort before he was deported to Neuengamme) (Huurdeman). Cor van de Burgwal tells it the same way: "Jan Verhoef werd vanuit Apeldoorn overgebracht naar Kamp Amersfoort" (Jan Verhoef was moved from Apeldoorn to Kamp Amersfoort) (the booklet, p. 34).

✓ His Amersfoort card: prisoner 10361, "Johannes H.J.", born 7.12.16 at Barneveld, Landbauer, Kath., led. (single), last address Achterveld, "Kleterdteeg 14" [Klettersteeg], next of kin "Eltern wie oben" (parents, as above), sent in by the "Sicherheitspolizei Apeldoorn", under Grund (reason) "KL! ins Reich Politisch ?", delivered 24 January 1945 (the year overtyped) and released on 2 February 1945 (the card, read on the image). So he was held at Apeldoorn from the raid until 24 January, and at Amersfoort from 24 January to 2 February. The camp's money card has 19.50 entered for him on 24 January 1945 and the same sum against 2 February, the day he left (the card, read on the image; it types his birth year as 1926). A camp index card adds "Naar Amersfoort. Op transport naar Neuengamme. 2 2 45" (the index card).

By the booklet's unsigned account, "De gevangenen verblijven bijna veertien dagen in het concentratiekamp Amersfoort" (the prisoners spent almost a fortnight in the Amersfoort camp), and his sister Riek and daughters of the Van Burgsteden family, "waarvan ook gezinsleden en buurjongens in het kamp zaten" (whose family members and neighbours' sons were also in the camp), took food to the camp gate (the booklet, p. 31). Cor van de Burgwal says the family tried to bring the brothers things and food, but does not know whether it arrived (p. 34).

The Neuengamme memorial has him at Amersfoort from 24 January to 2 February 1945 and reaching Neuengamme from Amersfoort on 4 February 1945 (Digitaal Monument Neuengamme). ✓ At Neuengamme he was prisoner 70574 (the Neuengamme list). Piet Veenendaal, released from Amersfoort the same day, was 70577 and reached Neuengamme on 4 February too, while Johan, who came by the Kruisberg train, was 70941 (Veenendaal's Neuengamme card; his Amersfoort card; Digitaal Monument Neuengamme, on Veenendaal; Johan's card). ◐ So he and Veenendaal were very probably on the same transport from Amersfoort. Cor van de Burgwal says he was probably in the Amersfoort carriages coupled behind Johan's train (below, Where the sources disagree).

From Neuengamme the brothers were moved to the Wöbbelin camp in Kreis Ludwigslust (Huurdeman; the booklet, p. 34); no source held gives the day Jan went there.

✓ He died at the Wöbbelin labour camp, Kreis Ludwigslust, at 9.30 a.m. on 4 March 1945, aged 28. The German death certificate, made out at Hamburg on 6 March 1945 (Nr. XIII/7), calls him a Landarbeiter, Catholic, of Barneveld, Holland, who died at the Arbeitslager (labour camp) at Wöbbelin, Kreis Ludwigslust, at 9.30 on 4 March 1945; born at Barneveld on 7 December 1916, unmarried, son of Cornelis Verhoef and "Regina geborene Blom", both of Barneveld; cause "Dysenterie"; entered on the spoken report of a Kriminalsekretär at Hamburg-Neuengamme (the certificate, read on the image). The same registrar entered Johan's death on 7 March 1945, the day he died, as XIII/44 (Johan's certificate).

The camp's records agree on the day. The post-war Neuengamme list of the Dutch dead has him on line 298, "Verhoef | Joannes Henricus Johannes | 07.12.1916 | Barneveld | NL | 70574 | 04.03.1945 | KZ Wöbbelin", with Johan on the next line (the list); the camp's index card for him has "verst. 4. 3. 1945 / Hambg. Neuengamme" (the card); and the Dutch Red Cross's typed list of Dutch dead in Kreis Hamburg has "Verhoef | Jahannes Henricus Jahannes | 7.12.16. | 4. 3.45. | X111/7/45" [XIII/7/45], the register number of the certificate (Nationaal Archief 2.19.323, inv. 521, p. 38, read on the image).

Huurdeman has his father die of grief in March 1945, "zonder dat hij dat wist" (without his knowing it) that both sons had died (Huurdeman). ✓ Cornelis Verhoef died at Barneveld on 30 March 1945 (his death record, index only). The booklet's unsigned account says "Huisarts Braun kwam bij de familie Verhoef mededelen dat Jan en Johan in het gruwelkamp waren overleden" (the family doctor, Braun, came to tell the Verhoef family that Jan and Johan had died in the camp of horrors) (p. 31); Cor van de Burgwal says Cornelis never knew, and "Twee maanden later ontving zijn vrouw het bericht" (two months later his wife received the news), without saying two months after what (the booklet, p. 34).

Barneveld registered his death as that of Joannes Henricus Johannes Verhoef, landbouwer, 28, who died on 4 March 1945 "Neuengamme (Duitsland)", deed 183 of 1945 (the register, index only).

The War Graves Foundation took up his case in 1951 and wrote to Barneveld on 20 October for his family's address; the answer of 23 October gives his mother, Rengertje Blom, born 28 April 1876, "wed. van C. Verhoef" (widow of C. Verhoef), at Klettersteeg 14 (the Foundation's file, scans 6 and 7). His mother wrote in what she knew:

On the grave form for Johan she added that "mijn oudste zoon ook gelijktijdig verwoerd [sic] is naar Duitsland, en daar ook is overleden en begraven" (my eldest son was also carried off to Germany at the same time, and also died and was buried there) (the grave form for Johan). The Foundation's grave form for Jan, of about 1951, has him die on 4 March 1945 at Hamburg-Neuengamme of "Dysenterie" and be buried there, and leave for Germany on 19 December 1944, the circumstances "Ondergrondse- of verzetsgroep" (underground or resistance group) (the grave form). Barneveld's questionnaire of January 1957 gives his father as "overleden 30.3.45" and says "Betrokkene is door de Duitsers gearresteerd. Gedwongen naar Duitsland vertrokken" (he was arrested by the Germans and went to Germany by force); the Ministry of Justice's stamp of 18 November 1958 records nothing against him (the questionnaire).

He is on the war memorial by the Sint-Jozefkerk at Achterveld, "J.H.J. VERHOEF Czn" among the civilian dead, ◐ Czn being the usual abbreviation for "son of Cornelis", and its register has "J.H.J. Verhoef Czn. (geboren 7-12-1916, overleden in het Duitse concentratiekamp Heyerhorst op 4-3-1945)" (4 en 5 mei). The state's roll of honour, the Erelijst, has "Verhoef, Joannes Henricus, Barneveld 7·XII·1916, Landbouwer, Neuengamme 4·III·1945" (the roll, folio 732, read by eye; its website record). The Oorlogsgravenstichting's page has him dying at Wöbbelin, "Is 28 jaar geworden" (lived to 28), with Huurdeman's account (the page).

◐ A roll of March 1947. The Salesiaans Tijdschrift, the Dutch Salesians' journal for the Medewerkers (the lay co-workers) of Don Bosco, closes a list headed "Overleden Medewerkers" (deceased co-workers) in its issue of 20 March 1947 with "Cornelis Verhoef, Achteveld. Joannes Verhoef, Achteveld. Johannes Verhoef, Achteveld." (the issue, p. 35; image-checked). The village, the three first names and the order fit this family: Cornelis the father, Joannes this man (the form of his name on his German death certificate) and Johannes his brother Johan. ◐ But the list gives no dates, ages or place of death, and Achteveld may have had other Verhoefs, so it is a sign that the family were among the mission's Catholic supporters and not a source for their deaths.

• The day of the raid. ⚠︎ Not settled. 19 December 1944 in Huurdeman and on the Foundation's grave form, as the day he left for Germany (Huurdeman; the grave form). 18 December in both of the booklet's accounts, and the unsigned one also has "Maandag 16 December 1944" in its text; 18 December 1944 was the Monday (the booklet, pp. 31, 33).
• Where he died. ✓ Wöbbelin: the German certificate, the Neuengamme list, the Neuengamme memorial, the Oorlogsgravenstichting and Huurdeman (the certificate; the list; Digitaal Monument Neuengamme).
  • Neuengamme: his mother's note, the grave form, Barneveld's questionnaire, Barneveld's death register, the camp's own index card and the Erelijst (the Foundation's file; the register; the card; the roll). ◐ Wöbbelin was a Neuengamme subcamp, so both name the camp that ran it; the certificate is the primary record of the place.
  • "Heijerhorst in Wôbeling" on the memorial card and "Heyerhorst" in the memorial register (the card; 4 en 5 mei). ◐ Probably the Reiherhorst camp, which Doetinchem Herdenkt describes as the wooden-barrack camp near Wöbbelin where the first prisoners sent from Neuengamme on 12 February 1945 were housed (Doetinchem Herdenkt); the spelling is our reading.
• Where he was born. De Glind, in Barneveld municipality, in the civil birth record; Barneveld on the certificate, the Amersfoort card, the Neuengamme list and Barneveld's questionnaire; Achterveld in his mother's note, the grave form and the memorial card ("Achteveld") (the birth record; his mother's note; the card). ✓ The day, 7 December 1916, is the same in every source; Achterveld is where the family lived.
• His age. ✓ 28, by the dates, Barneveld's register and the Oorlogsgravenstichting. The booklet's unsigned account has "Hij werd 29 jaar" (he lived to 29) (the booklet, p. 31).
• His name. Joannes Henricus Johannes on the certificate, in the birth record and on the memorial card; "Johannes H.J." on the Amersfoort card; "Joannus, Henricus, Johannus" in his mother's hand; "Jahannes Henricus Jahannes" on the Red Cross list; Joannes Henricus on the Erelijst; Joannes Hendricus Joannes in Huurdeman's list of the dead (Huurdeman).
• Which road he took. ✓ Apeldoorn, then Amersfoort, by his Amersfoort card (prisoner 10361, delivered 24 January 1945), the camp's index card, Huurdeman, Cor van de Burgwal and the Neuengamme memorial.
  • The booklet's unsigned account puts all the men taken at almost a fortnight in the Amersfoort camp (the booklet, p. 31); his card gives him nine days there, 24 January to 2 February.
  • ⚠︎ Doetinchem Herdenkt lists him among the De Kruisberg prisoners, under "Verhoef, Joannes (Jan) Henricus Johannes" but beginning "Johan Verhoef werd geboren op 7-12-1916 in Achterveld", with "zijn broer Johan" and the camp number "709xxx" (Doetinchem Herdenkt). ◐ No Kruisberg record of him is held, the number is a placeholder and his own, 70574, is not among the train's 70890 to 70972; the entry looks written from his brother's.
• How he reached Neuengamme.
  • Cor van de Burgwal: Johan was put on transport on 3 February 1945, and "Het cynische is, dat het treinstel met de gevangen uit Amersfoort erachter gekoppeld werd, waarschijnlijk zat zijn broer Jan daarin. Daar kwamen ze op 5 februari aan" (the cynical thing is that the train with the prisoners from Amersfoort was coupled behind it; his brother Jan was probably in it. They arrived there on 5 February) (the booklet, p. 34).
  • ⚠︎ The Neuengamme memorial has Jan arriving from Amersfoort on 4 February and Johan from Doetinchem on 5 February (Jan; Johan), and their numbers are far apart (70574, 70941).
• The resistance. The Oorlogsgravenstichting ("lid verzet"), Huurdeman ("lid van het verzet") and the grave form ("Ondergrondse- of verzetsgroep") put him in the resistance; Cor van de Burgwal says the family took in people in hiding but were not themselves, as far as is known, in the resistance (the page; Huurdeman; the grave form; the booklet, p. 33). ⚠︎ Not settled: no source names a group or anything he did, and Huurdeman has the SD take him because they did not find the man they came for.

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