The fallen resistance people in Limburg

Jan de Koning
(Johannes Hendrikus)

Dates of birth and death of Jan de Koning are from genealogieonline.nl [1]
His call name we know from ouweleem.nl [2]
The photo to the right from his personal file on rijckheyt.nl. [3]

Cammaert wrote summarily about him: Heerlen, police officer. Resistance pioneer. Was affiliated with the O.D. Also helped the first (Jewish) people in hiding and Allied refugees. [4.1]
Shortly after the German invasion, policeman Charles Bongaerts and his colleague, detective J.H. de Koning, had made a considerable amount of police weapons and ammunition disappear. [4.2]
In Heerlen and the surrounding area, communists, socialists, Protestants and members of the O.D. and the Bongaerts group were already taking care of people in hiding when there was no question of any structure and coordination. These were mainly Jews, communists and left-wing socialists. They suffered most from the German measures in 1941 and 1942. In mid-May 1942, professional officers from the Dutch army joined them. Aid workers like vicar J.W. Berix and policeman J.H. de Koning did manage to find enough host families, but the difficulties surrounding food supplies soon threatened to get over the initiators’ heads. [4.3]
In 1941 the commercial traveler Van Mansum worked as a representative for a Rotterdam chemical company and from 1943 for an importer of office machines in The Hague. This allowed him to travel unhindered. He was a member of the othodox Reformed church in Maastricht and strongly convinced anti-national socialist. In 1943 Van Mansum received ration cards from Heerlen police officer J.H. de Koning and chaplain L.J. Roumen, a Maastricht L.O. member. [4.4]

Jan de Koning was a member of the district council of the L.O. in Heerlen, along with district leader Giel Berix, his secretary Jan Cornips, vicar “Jantje” Keulen and OD people Quint and De Koning. [4.3]
After the war, he worked at the traffic police. He taught traffic in schools and took traffic exams. [3]

He received the order Knight of the Order of Orange Nassau in gold in 1955 as an adjutant of the Heerlen municipal police. [1]
On January 1, 1957, he retired, however without getting inactive: he became head of the self-protection in the A-zone Oude Mijnstreek of the civil defense. [3]

Footnotes

1. genealogieonline.nl Johannes Hendrikus de Koning
2. ouweleem.nl, oorlog Heerlense verhalen
3. rijckheyt.nl Johannes Hendrikus de Koning
4. Cammaert, A. P. M. (1994). Het verborgen front: Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
   1. Hoofdstuk 0, pp.18ff: Introductie van vaak genoemde personen
   2. Hoofdstuk 8 – De Ordedienst, p.241
   3. Hoofdstuk 6 – De Landelijke Organisatie voor hulp aan onderduikers, pp. 654-657
   4. Hoofdstuk 5 – Hulpverlening aan joden, p.403