The fallen resistance people in Limburg

Jacques “De Bruyn” Sangen
(Jakob Hubert Jozef)

Dates of birth and death can be found on his Im Memoriam card [1] and at geni.com about the underground press 1940-1945. [2]

Cammaert writes in summary about Jacques Sangen: A.H. van Mansum as chief distributor of “Vrij Nederland” (and “Ons Vrije Nederland”) in Limburg. Sangen provided assistance to Allied airmen. His reliability was doubted in some resistance circles, which he himself contributed to a certain extent by his actions. Quantitative exaggeration of the aid he provided was not unusual for him, nor for many others, but reprehensible actions have never been convincingly demonstrated. [3.1]

This is why Cammaert finds J. Sangen  [3.2]
The commando leader Jacques Crasborn, for example, said of him shortly after the war: But we didn’t do much business with Sangen, because we didn’t trust him. But he never betrayed anyone and he never disguised pilots (which we thought too.) [3.2]
It was his grandstanding, even after the war, Crasborn found it strange that he was on good terms with German officers and he suspected him of corruption. But even though Sangen was exaggerating:
Before June 1944, only a modest number, but nevertheless several dozen pilots were helped by Sangen and his people. [3.2]

The Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society also pays attention to Sangen and his group. In doing so, realistic numbers are mentioned:
J.H.J. (De Bruyn) Sangen worked as a civil servant at the Rijksdienst voor de Verkeersinspectie in Hoensbroek, as did Vrij in Maastricht. Jacques Sangen had managed to organize a number of hiding addresses for aviators in and around Hoensbroek in the first half of 1944. He got his aviators from De Zwarte Plak through P.J. (Jef, De Witte) Ronden who, as a former officer, was active in the Sittard resistance group. A limited number of airmen from the Sangen group could be brought to Maastricht, and Sangen personally brought a number of airmen to Slenaken on the Belgian border. About thirty of the (approximately) forty crew members helped by this group were brought across the border near Stramproy in the summer of 1944 when all other border crossings in Dutch Limburg could no longer be used due to arrests. [4]

Footnotes

1. rijckheyt.nl Im Memoriam Jakob Hubert Jozef Sangen
2. geni.com de ondergrondse pers 1940-1945
3. Cammaert, A. P. M. (1994). Het verborgen front: Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
   Hoofdst. 0, pp.18ff: Introductie van vaak genoemde personen
   Hoofdst. 4 - geallieerde piloten, p.319-323
4. Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society Chapter 4: The Organizations, 4.3.6. The Sangen group