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People | Events/ Backgrounds | Resistance groups | Cities & Towns | Concentration Camps | Valkenburg 1940-1945 |

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Citizens of Valkenburg, who died for our freedom

Original size 869 × 1467 px

Source of the image: weekly “Het Land van Valkenburg”, Sept. 13th, 1974
No member of the L.O. Valkenburg died. But other citizens of Valkenburg, who have made resistance and the two resistance people, who were shot in Valkenburg.
So the list on the image is to be completed as follows:

  • F. A. (Frans) Cobbenhaegen, born on 10/18/1921 in Valkenburg, postal officer, unmarried, arrested (date unknown) in Cologne for smuggling letters to the Netherlands, died on 12/20/1944 in concentration camp Kdo. Langenstein-Zwieberge, Buchenwald, buried Quedlinburg, Hauptfriedhof, 23 years old.
    See memorial stone former post office: war victims among postal workers in Valkenburg.
    Not a member of the resistance but working at the post and therefore also on this memorial stone:
    Hub Vrancken from Houthem. He died after being hit by a shrapnel on liberation day September 17, 1944, when he was so careless about leaving his house to see how the liberation was going.
  • G. J. (Gerrit) van der Gronden, born 12/13/1895, driver-mechanic, married, took care of Jewish people in hiding, was arrested January 13th, 1942, died January 2nd, 1943, 47 years old.
    In Chapter 10, Fred Cammaert writes: “In his garage on the Heugemer Weg in Maastricht he made stencils of De Vonk, the Limburgian edition of De Waarheid (The Truth)”.
    At https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/persoon/54336/gerrit-jan-van-der-gronden we read:
    Born on December 13, 1895 in Dordrecht
    Died on January 2, 1943 in concentration camp Neuengamme near Hamburg
    Cammaert: Van der Gronden died in the concentration camp Neuengamme on December 5, 1942 (Open Street Map). His brother A.C. van der Gronden was a member of Rayon Valkenburg of the L.O.
    See also https://monument.vriendenkringneuengamme.nl/person/401623/gerrit-jan-van-der-gronden
  • Charles Joseph Nijst, born on March 5th, 1916 in Kerkrade
    Died on January 18, 1944 in camp Groß-Beeren, District of Teltow.
    He refused to sign a declaration of loyalty and went into hiding, arrested (date unknown) for spreading clandestine printed matter.
  • Rocks, J. (resistance group Erkens in Maastricht, co-owner of the guesthouse Samos House, later called hotel Atlanta), born on May 21, 1883, arrested in Valkenburg for spreading resistance printed matter on November 19, 1942, died in the Nacht und Nebel camp in Natzweiler (Alsace) on March 3, 1944.
    “Bidprentje” (prayer card) of Jan Joseph Rocks:
    https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/persoon/128452/jan-jozef-roks
  • F. G. (Frank) Smits from Hulsberg, born on August 29th, 1919, law student, refused to sign a declaration of loyalty and went into the resistance movement (mapped the activities of the Germans at Dutch airports and passed them on to the allies), arrested on August 12th, 1943, suspected of conspiracy and, after a stay in various prisons, eventually sentenced to death by a special court of war for prohibited possession of weapons, shot on 4/4/1944 in Utrecht.
  • Jean Caubo from Schin-op-Geul, http://www.caubo.com/index_bestanden/index5.htm#jean
  • Gerard Soesman ∗ June 23rd, 1922, mentioned in Erelijst van gevallenen 1940 - 1945 in the group Resistance. His father was Jewish. Died in Auschwitz, date unknown.
  • Sjeng Coenen from Simpelveld and Joep Francotte from Vaals were members of the KP South-Limburg, shot on the Cauberg (sept. 6 1944).


Album : Resistance

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