The fallen resistance people in Limburg

Pauli Crauwels
(Paul Nicolaas)

Oorlogsgravenstichting

Paul Crauwels was born in Oud-Vroenhoven, municipality of Maastricht, and was a typesetter. [1#5]
Machine setter at Alberts Printers in Sittard as well as working in insurance. Roman Catholic. He was editor-in-chief of Carmel Roses, an illustrated magazine whose theme was devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Member of the Resistance. His activities included making identity cards for downed pilots. [2]
After the war, the municipality of Sittard wrote about him: Arrested by the Germans shortly before liberation (on September 18, 1944) for distributing clandestine writings and shot without a trial in Sittard. [1#4]
On the next page of his file [1#5] the question of the circumstances of his death is specified:
He was arrested by the NSB as a resister and handed over to the Germans, who then mistreated him in a bestial manner and then killed him.

According to Cammaert, he also distributed the communist newspaper De Waarheid. On September 7, 1944, two distributors of De Waarheid, J.W.H. Theunissen and P.N. Crauwels, who had picked up some copies at S. Beyer shortly before, were arrested by some land guards (auxiliar police) in Munstergeleen. The next day the two were murdered in Sittard. [2]
Given his devotion to the Virgin Mary, it is unlikely that Paul was a Communist. This fits the times: after all, the Soviet Union was allied with the West. That is why he is considered only a CPN sympathizer here.
A memorial plaque with the names of Pauli Crauwels and 11 other war victims was unveiled in the Amby suburb of Maastricht on March 14, 2008. On that occasion, his son said in the local language they had been rounded up umtot ze ’n ondergronds gezetsje höbbe gewisseld. Dat gebeurde op 8 september 1944. Tien daog veur de bevrijding. Um 8 oor ’s aoves höbbe SS’ers ze alle twie vermoord op ’t sjtort in Zitterd. (Because they exchanged an underground leaflet. This happened on September 8, 1944, ten days before the liberation. At 8 p.m. SS men shot all two of them at the garbage dump in Sittard.) [2]

Footnotes

1. Archief Oorlogsgravenstichting (@ Nationaal archief), Dossier Paul Crauwels • #2< • #4
2. wo2slachtoffers.nl biogr. Paul Crauwels
3. Dr. F. Cammaert, Het Verborgen Front – Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Doctorale scriptie 1994, Groningen
   10. De C.P.N. en de illegaliteit, p. 1030.
   Van Aernsbergen, Onze Gevallenen, pp. 166, 185. Uitgever Stichting Herdenking der Gevallenen van het Verzet in Limburg 1940/1945
   Stichting ’40-’45, Eindhoven
4. x
5. Erelijst 1940-1945
6. Oorlogsgravenstichting.nl