Berkelaar, Jeanne Anne Christine

Date of birth:: May 25th, 1919 (Gombong/Midden-Java, Dutch East Indies)
Date of death:: January 18th, 2007 (The Netherlands)
Nationality:: Dutch

Biography

Jeanne 'Sjaantje' Anne Christina Berkelaar, daughter of Pieter Hendrik Berkelaar and Petronella Schotel. Attended the 5-year HBS in Dordrecht and lived in Zwijndrecht. During World War II, wearing a nurse's uniform, she was active as a courier for the Dordrecht (mainly Reformed) resistance group Kooiman.

On 8 August 1944, she was betrayed by the notorious traitor Miep Oranje and arrested by the SD. Despite harsh and humiliating interrogations by the SD, she did not reveal anything. Via Rotterdam and the Oranjehotel, she ended up in camp Vught and, after the evacuation of the camp on 6 September 1944, in Ravensbrück and in Dachau (no 123093). There she was employed in the Agfa factories where ammunition for anti-aircraft guns was made. On 29 April 1944, she was liberated by the US army.

On 11 November 1947, she enlisted in the Women's Corps of the KNIL to work as a nurse in a military hospital. In late 1949, she returned to the Netherlands in the rank of sergeant titular and settled in Spain and France with her husband Frans Rennings. She died on 18 January 1977 in Steenwijk.

In March 2025, the Jeanne Berkelaar path was named after her at the Essehof Cemetery in Dordrecht.

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