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22 students who fell during the occupation

Published: 01st May 2023 Last updated: 02nd May 2023

22 places in the lecture halls of the Roman Catholic Business School remained empty after the Second World War. 22 students who had fallen victim to the Nazi regime as a result of resisting, being shot or dying from exhaustion and illness. In 1945, after the liberation, the Tilburg St Olof Student Association honored them with a commemorative booklet: In Memoriam Fratrum. Praeses Siebold Klasen of Olof today: ‘People often take for granted that so many things are possible and permitted. By reflecting on and remembering those who gave their lives for our freedom, I hope people will realize that it is not to be taken for granted.’

Eighty years ago, after many national strikes and sabotage actions (against the dismissal of Jewish lecturers, for example) the occupying forces demanded in 1943 that all Dutch students signed a declaration of loyalty. They had to promise that they would “refrain from any act directed against the German Reich [...]”. The previously established underground Council of Nine (the nine universities and colleges at the time) represented the 15,000 students. Male students who did not sign were considered unemployed by the Germans and would then be sent into forced labor in Germany. Despite this threat, the Council recommended not signing.

Continue to fight

The vast majority of students in Tilburg heeded the call, and also did not report for work. St Olof had disbanded because it refused to expel Jewish students. Martinus Cobbenhagen, the founder of Tilburg University, and former rector, took the same view as the Council of Nine. And he suffered too: the Nazis interned him in Haaren because of the school’s dismissive attitude toward the German occupiers. He supported the students’ resistance and wrote to one of them, Nico van Kerkoerle, advising him: “not to lose heart but to continue to fight for the Netherlands and for freedom, and to keep faith in God”.

A student who refused risked not only their own life but also that of their family. Many students were already in the resistance, acting as couriers, forging and distributing documents, for example, and helping to hide Jews.

True Dutchman

The commemorative booklet shows the faces of the 22 students who gave their lives. Such as Nico van Kerkoerle, born and raised in Tilburg, a sporty young man who, like others, suddenly had his life turned upside down. But he could not let the occupying forces have their way. Before 1943, he was already helping prisoners of war to escape and return home and he arranged the distribution of ration coupons for people in hiding. He refused to sign the declaration of loyalty and then had to go into hiding himself. Despite everything, he managed to complete his bachelor’s degree. But the following day he was arrested. The Germans sent him from camp to camp. In 1945, he died of typhus at Neuengamme.

 

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Herdenkingsmonument Niek van Kerkoerle

In the commemorative booklet the students wrote about him as follows: “Niek, you are now gone from us and we will all miss you. First and foremost your parents, who in you lost their hope and their pride, their best son. But we too, your fellow students and friends and all who knew you. (…) there is no better way to honor your memory than by trying to follow the example you set us, for you were a true Catholic, in the fullest sense of the word, and a true Dutchman.”

Enabling people to find sanctuary

Or take Marius van den Wildenberg and his colleague André Vissers, who made themselves useful in the war years by issuing fake identity cards to boys in Haaren who, just like them, had reached the age at which they would be sent to work in Germany. By issuing false papers, Marius and André also enabled many resistance fighters and people in hiding to find temporary sanctuary in the village. 

They stole the records and the population register from the town hall in Haaren and buried them in a henhouse. “First, we buried the Haaren population registers. We took those dusty repositories of data that were so precious to the Gestapo and their accomplices and stuffed them into the prepared pit… We took turns digging in the light of the rapidly rising moon, the scratching and banging of the sharp spade ringing hollow in the hard ground. The four of us then danced at the place where the people of Haaren were resting – hopefully in peace.” Marius, as well as André was arrested and taken to various camps, eventually dying of exhaustion.

Refusing to sing the declaration

The members of the Student Union honored all of the 22 fallen, with a memory, a reflection, which they place alongside a passport photograph. Ordinary boys in suits and ties, with straight partings in their hair, full of activity and with their lives ahead of them. Frans, Hans, Gérard, Guus, Theo, Wim, Frits, Charles, Jacques, Nico, Piet, Henk, Adriaan, Geert, Frans, Jan, Hans, René, Nico, Marius, Leo, Wiel. The editors of the booklet aim: “to keep alive in us the memory of those who sacrificed themselves as conscientious idealists and of the great responsibility we all bear as a result of their sacrifices”.

Cobbenhagen adds in the introduction: “They died for justice, and it is for justice and its fulfillment in our own lives and in the life of the community that we must fight and give our life forces at this time, in these circumstances.”

Only 200 of the 15,000 students signed the declaration. The occupying forces subsequently arrested 3,500 refusers, who would be sent to Germany. The other refusers went into hiding.

A lot of students and young people don’t realize what freedom meant in those days and how differently we interpret it now

Commemoration with Praeses and Dean

President of St Olof, Siebold Klasen: “Students who were studying in Tilburg at that time were in principle also members of Olof. During WWII, Olof was a source of resistance against the German regime in Tilburg and the seat of the Tilburg student resistance movement. Among others, Ruud Dekkers, President of the Senate during the war years, called on Olof members to unite and not to yield to the German occupation.

When I read the stories of the 22 Olof members who gave their lives, I can’t help but respect their deeds and courage. These days, for most of our society, it’s hard to imagine how people must have felt at that time. The stories will stay with me forever. I can’t imagine how it must have been to face a choice between declaring loyalty to Germany on the one hand and resistance on the other. Of course, I couldn’t promise now that I would join the resistance, however much I wanted to. A lot of students and young people don’t realize what freedom meant in those days and how differently we interpret it now. On 4 May we will remember those who fought for our freedom. We will attend commemorations on behalf of Olof.”

The commemoration of the students by the Praeses and the Dean of Tilburg School of Economics and Management, will take place on May 4th at the Commemoration Wall in the University.

(By Tineke Bennema)

Sources

www.monumentvoordevrijheid.nl

Uitgave Viking van Tilburgsche Studentencorps St. Olof, 1945, In Memoriam Fratrum.

De Gedenkwand voor gevallen studenten bevindt zich in Cobbenhagen-gebouw.