Date of birth:

February 10th, 1918 (Haarlem, Netherlands)

Date of death:

February 22nd, 1945 (Peres, Germany)

Buried on:

Dutch War Graves General Cemetery Bloemendaal
Grave: A.169.

Nationality:

Dutch

Gerrit Hellewaard was a pharmacist and office clerk from Bloemendaal. He was born on February 10, 1918 as the son of Gerrit Dirk Hellewaard and Grietje Baas. When he was examined for military service in March 1937, Hellewaard was 1 meter 79 tall and weighed 65.5 kilos. He was approved and entered service on October 11, 1937 and went on so-called long leave on September 2, 1938.

On March 29, 1943, Hellewaard was forced to work at the Fokker factories in Amsterdam. These Fokker factories were used by the Germans during the war to produce aircraft parts. Not the original parts for Fokker aircraft but for German training aircraft and Junkers Ju-52 transport aircraft. It is not clear whether Hellewaard experienced the famous bombing of the Fokker factories. Or that he was already on transport to Germany at that time.

After his work in the Fokker factories in Amsterdam, Hellewaard was transported via camp Amersfoort to a work camp in Germany. It is not clear why Hellewaard ended up on this transport, but there are several possibilities. The three most logical ones are refusal to work, sabotage or an escape attempt. This can be traced back to the fact that Hellewaard in Germany ended up in an Arbeitserziehungslager, a so-called work-education camp. People only entered these types of camps if someone had offered resistance during the compulsory labor deployment.

Gerrit Hellewaard is imprisoned in the Holländerlager Alpenrose in the hamlet of Peres, about ten kilometers south of Leipzig. Most people in this camp worked at the Böhlener Werke of the Aktiengesellschaft Sächsische Werke. Their main task was to clear the rubble around Leipzig caused by many bombings. The work is hard and there is little food.
It is therefore not surprising that many of the forced laborers die of hunger, exhaustion or disease. Gerrit Dirk Hellewaard is one of these many deaths. Hellewaard died on February 22, 1945 from diphtheria. The remains of Gerrit Dirk Hellewaard were finally transferred to the General Cemetery in Bloemendaal in 1952.

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• Photo 1: Arjo Eijgelsheim
• - Oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/ Gerrit Dirk Hellewaard
  

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