Leendert Jan Veerman

Den Haag 3 May 1907 – Den Haag 12 Dec 1975

Leendert Jan Veerman (his Ede population card)

About: The younger of the two brothers of Jacob Veerman, who hid Murphy and Hardy at Klein Achterveld for a month in 1944: a bicycle repairer of Barneveld, held at Kamp Vught from December 1943 to July 1944, and after the war on the staff of the post-war political investigation service. ◐ Probably the brother whose revolver Murphy carried: a son of Jacob's remembers fetching it from him with his father (With Murphy).

Unit or role: Bicycle repairer: ◐ the journeyman's examination in 1929 (the newspaper), rijwielhersteller at his marriage in 1931 (the records); resistance: ◐ the "L.J.Veerman" with whom Jacob worked, by the L.O.-L.K.P. form of 1946 (the form, B.3), and ✓ a bearer of the Verzetsherdenkingskruis, the Dutch resistance commemoration cross (the register, p. 227); after the war on the staff of the Politieke Recherche Afdeling (the Nationaal Archief's entry).

Where: Lunteren (Ede) as a child, 1911–1918; Barneveld, 1e Achterdorp 20 (1943); Kamp Vught, December 1943 to July 1944; The Hague by 1963, Jaarsveldstraat 39 in 1975.

Evidence: ✓ civil records; ✓ his Ede population card; ✓ Vught camp card (Arolsen Archives 1.1.12.2); ◐ the L.O.-L.K.P. form for Jacob, 1946; ◐ the Ede compilers' notes, 1006/715, unsigned; ✓ the register of bearers of the Verzetsherdenkingskruis, 1985, p. 227; ✓ his death notice.

✓ He was born in Den Haag on 3 May 1907, the son of Leendert Veerman and Johanna Maria Kok: Ede's population card has "Veerman", "Leendert Jan", born "3 Mei 1907" at "s-Gravenhage", Gereformeerd ("GerK"), son of Leendert, born 26 July 1868 at Nieuwkoop, and Johanna Maria Kok, born 15 July 1873 at Alphen, the parents' dates on his brother Arie's card (the card; the records). His father's father was Jacob Veerman, a merchant (koopman) at Nieuwkoop in 1868 (the record), ◐ very probably the cheese merchant of Bodegraven whose will of 6 March 1900 names his sons Jan, Leendert and Jacobus Johannes (the will's index entry; the link is set out on Jacob's page; the Leendert of the will fits his father, but no record held says so). He came to Barneveld with the family in 1910 (the records; war graves file of his brother Jacob, scan 2); the card has him moving with the family from Barneveld to Lunteren, in Ede, on 8 March 1911, and back to Barneveld on 4 December ◐ 1918 (the last figure is faint, read by the date on Arie's card) (the card).

He was a bicycle repairer when he married Wilhelmina Broekhuis at Barneveld on 29 May 1931, aged 24 (the records); ◐ a notice in two Reformed periodicals has "W. Broekhuis en L. J. Veerman" engaged at Barneveld on 24 November 1926 (the notices; OCR only), and ✓ in July 1929 "L. J. Veerman, Barneveld" passed the journeyman bicycle-repairer's examination (gezel rijwielherstellen) of the Vereeniging ter Veredeling van het Ambacht, a crafts-training association (Utrechtsch Provinciaal en Stedelijk Dagblad, 31 July 1929; checked on the image); ◐ that he is Leendert Jan rests on the initials and the town, and the exam fits the trade the marriage register gives him two years later. Wilhelmina was a sister of Gerrit Jan Broekhuis, who married Leendert Jan's sister Jansje Maria in 1940.

◐ The form the L.O.-L.K.P. foundation collected for Jacob's entry in its book of the fallen in February 1946 names, among the men Jacob worked with from the summer of 1943, "L.J.Veerman", with G. v.d. Woerd and Ben v. Daalen, alias Werner, "allen wonende te Barneveld" (all living at Barneveld) (the form, B.3). Leendert Jan lived at Barneveld, so this is very probably him.

✓ He is in the 1985 register of bearers of the Verzetsherdenkingskruis, the cross for those who took part in the resistance, instituted in 1980: "Veerman, Leendert J. 03-05-1907", and ◐ very probably his wife is the "Veerman - Broekhuis, Wilhelmina 24-11-1908" beside him (the register, p. 227; what the cross is). His birth date is the one on his Ede card; hers is matched only by the surname and by fitting the bride of 22 in the marriage of 1931 (the records). The cross "is only awarded at the request of a person eligible to receive it" (WWII Netherlands Escape Lines), and the register gives no more than names and dates of birth: nothing on what either of them did. The Documentatiegroep 40-45's database has him from the same book, with nothing more (record 19373).

◐ Ede's collection on the war years holds a personal dossier headed "Veerman, Leendert J.", two handwritten sheets made by Lagerwij and Plekkringa for their book Ede 1940–1945, unsigned and giving no source (1006/715, the scan; transcription; the finding aid; checked on the scan). It lists G. W. van de Woerd (born Barneveld, 25 September 1891), "Veerman Leendert Jan", born The Hague 3 May 1907, of Barneveld, 1e Achterdorp 20, with "21-10-43" written beside his name, and a Jewish woman born in Slovakia, and says "21.10.43 Aangehouden ter beschikking SD Arnhem" (arrested at the disposal of the SD at Arnhem). ✓ The man is him: name, birth date and address are those of his Ede card and the Vught card (below). ◐ The date rests on this one unsigned note. A note adds that his address is the same as that of someone named Duizer, arrested the same day, and asks whether Duizer could have been a parachutist: the compilers' own question, with no source. The woman went to Westerbork on 22 October, visits were barred on 23 October, and "v.d. Woerd en Veerman worden op 27.10 naar SD Arnhem gebracht" (Van de Woerd and Veerman are taken to the SD at Arnhem on 27 October). An arrest on 21 October 1943 fits his intake at Vught on 15 December, and is a year before Murphy came to the farm. ◐ The G. v.d. Woerd of Barneveld whom the L.O.-L.K.P. form names as working with Jacob and Leendert Jan is very probably the same Van de Woerd, by initials and town. No source says why the two were arrested. The dossier of Van de Woerd himself, Ede 1006/757, is open only with the municipal archivist's written permission until 1 January 2034 (the catalogue).

✓ The Arolsen Archives hold his Vught (Herzogenbusch) file: Leendert J. Veerman, born at Den Haag on 3 May 1907, of Barneveld, 1e Achterdorp 20, prisoner 8479 in Block 16; brought in on 15 December 1943, out on work details at Breda and Venlo, and released on 1 July 1944 ("Vrijgelaten 1 Juli 1944"; a second entry, from the Venlo work detail, reads "Vrygelaten 28 Juni 1944") (camp card), so he was home again nearly five months before Murphy came (Jacob's brothers in the camps). The name, the birth date and place are those of his Ede card, which names his parents (the card). A faint note on the camp card asks for leave for his mother's funeral, and his mother died at Barneveld on 23 June 1944, about a week before he was released (the card; her death). The card does not say why he was held. Its note carries a typed "(arrestatie 3.1.44)", clear on the image, a date that sits neither with his intake on 15 December 1943 nor with the arrest above (he was already out on the Breda work detail on 28 December 1943); what it refers to is not known. (The index's Arie Veerman, held at Amersfoort, was born in 1918, so he is not Jacob's brother Arie.)

No source puts him at the farm while Murphy and Hardy were there, from about 25 November to 23 December 1944 (Hardy; Jacob Veerman). His part, if he had one, is the revolver Murphy carried when he was taken on 2/3 January 1945. Who gave it to Murphy is told three ways:

• ◐ Hardy, in his MI9 report of 13 January 1945: "MURPHY's given him by Jacob VEERMAN" (Hardy).
• ⚠︎ Murphy, in two passages of his notes of about 1998: a policeman in the family, who gave him his own revolver as they left. He has "Jo Veermans uncle" give him "a revolver, one of the Dutch Police revolvers, which belonged to him" (p.6; the typed copy), and names him "Mr Veermans Brother, who was in the Dutch Police" (his page about Tex Banwell).
• A son of Jacob's, who is living and was about eleven at the time, told Jacques Vanhaelen in October 2026 that he and his father fetched it from Jacob's brother Leen (Leendert Jan), a bicycle repairer who kept a number of pistols in a tool cabinet; Jacob hid it on the boy, and when Germans stopped them on the way back and searched Jacob, it was not found. It is his own memory as the boy who carried it; Jacques wrote that he "still remembers very clearly" the pistols in Leen's tool cabinet (Jacques Vanhaelen's email, 18 October 2026).

No record found gives Leendert Jan's work in 1944: his trade on paper is that of 1931, and the staff file below is from after the war. He is very probably (◐) the brother on record as working with Jacob, by the initials and the town, and he had been in German hands once already. Hardy separately mentions an unnamed Dutch policeman in that network (Hardy), and Jacob's grandson Carel Plantagie knows of no policeman in the family (his email, October 2026). Murphy's "Mr Veermans Brother" fits Leen or Arie, not their brother-in-law Gerrit Jan Broekhuis, a baker on every record found and not Jacob's brother (Jacob Veerman; The revolver; What we still don't know).

◐ The revolver was probably Leen's (Leendert Jan Veerman, Jacob's brother). Murphy and the son both put the revolver with Jacob's brother, but the son answered after our question to Jacques Vanhaelen of 16 October 2026 had put Murphy's policeman-uncle version to him, so the two are not independent; Hardy has Jacob himself give it. The rest of the son's account is his alone: by it he was there when it was fetched (the tool cabinet, the boy carrying it, the search), and he calls Leen a bicycle repairer then and a detective in The Hague after the war (below). Hardy's "given him by Jacob VEERMAN" fits if Jacob brought it home; Murphy has the uncle hand it over himself as they left. It is graded probable rather than confirmed only because no record of the time says so.

His father died at Barneveld on 10 January 1945, and his brother Jacob was taken on 24 February 1945 and died on the Cap Arcona on 3 May 1945 (Jacob Veerman; the records). His sister Jansje Maria died at Ede in 1947, aged 34 (her death). ⚠︎ An RTV Utrecht report of 4 May 2024 from Neuengamme has a granddaughter of Jacob's say of the family members who were imprisoned there and had to work, "Ook de broer van mijn opa en zijn neef herdenken we hier" (we also remember my grandfather's brother and his nephew here); it gives no name, date or reason. Whether that brother was Leendert Jan, taken a second time, is not known (RTV Utrecht). No record found has Leendert Jan arrested between January and May 1945; the sources searched are thin for those months, so that is not a finding that he was not (the searches). Murphy wrote that "the Germans rounded up the Uncle and others"; no Veerman was taken in the December round-up of 1944 (José Huurdeman's local history, via the Oorlogsgravenstichting), and nothing found ties any arrest to the revolver (Jacob's brothers in the camps).

⚠︎ A son of Jacob's, who is living, remembers that near the end of the war Leen was arrested by the Germans and held in prison at Eindhoven, and released fairly quickly (Jacques Vanhaelen's email, October 2026). It is his own memory, about eighty years on, passed on by Jacques Vanhaelen, and the account gives no date. No record held bears it out, and it does not fit: ◐ Eindhoven was in Allied hands from the autumn of 1944 (our reading of the fact that Allied evaders left from it for England on 24 and 26 October 1944: Hibbert; Bolland). Whether it is a memory of his arrest of October 1943 and Vught (above) is not known.

✓ After the war he worked for the Politieke Recherche Afdeling (PRA), the political-investigation service of the special post-war justice. The Nationaal Archief lists a personnel file "Veerman, L.J., 1907-05-03" in the staff files of the Directoraat-Generaal voor de Bijzondere Rechtspleging, with "Plaats van tewerkstelling" (place of employment) the PRA at Rotterdam, Apeldoorn and The Hague (the inventory entry, 2.09.70 inv. 19233). The initials and the exact birth date are his, by his Ede card (the card). A staff file is one of an employee, not of a suspect. The entry gives no years of service or duties, and the file has not been read. ⚠︎ The same son remembers that after the war he became a detective in The Hague (Jacques Vanhaelen's email, October 2026), which does not contradict this file.

✓ In June 1963 he and his wife signed from The Hague the notice of the sudden death of Rijk Broekhuis, aged 55 (◐ very probably her brother: the notice says only "geliefde Broer, Zwager en Oom", from the family), in a notice dated Barneveld, 16 June (Trouw, 22 June 1963; checked on the image), so they were at The Hague by then. Among the other signatories are "G. J. BROEKHUIS" and "A. BROEKHUIS-de Ru" of Ede, ◐ his brother-in-law Gerrit Jan Broekhuis and Gerrit Jan's second wife (same).

He died suddenly at The Hague on 12 December 1975, aged 68; the family's address was Jaarsveldstraat 39, and the notice set the funeral for 16 December at the Nieuwe Algemene Begraafplaats at Barneveld, with the burial after the service. The notice is signed by his wife, W. Veerman-Broekhuis, by his children's families and by a sister at Zwolle (Trouw, 13 December 1975). The age, the Broekhuis wife and the Barneveld funeral make him Jacob's brother. ⚠︎ He lived until 1975, so if he was the brother commemorated at Neuengamme, he came home; Jacob is the only Veerman on the online Neuengamme memorial, which lists the dead (the search).

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