Date of birth:

October 1st, 1917 (Bergen op Zoom/North Brabant, Netherlands)

Date of death:

June 13th, 1942 (Wassenaar (Waalsdorpervlakte), Netherlands)

Buried on:

Dutch Field of Honour Loenen
Plot: E. Grave: 1009.

Nationality:

Dutch

Adrianus Johannes Buijens was born on 1 October 1917 in Bergen op Zoom, the second son of Cornelis Buijens, a carpenter by trade, and Cornelia van Eekelen. His parents named him Jan.
Due to circumstances at home, Jan spent several years in foster care, first in Heer (South Limburg) and then in Doetinchem (Kruisberg). In 1936 he moves to the Rijksopvoedingsgesticht (ROG) on Utrechtseweg in Amersfoort. After his military service he finally lives at Schimmelpenninckkade no. 50. Jan becomes a carpenter, like his father and his co-resident H.A. Kalleveen. He remains unmarried.

Buijens was active in the Ordedienst (OD), the Amersfoort section of which was founded in August 1940 during a secret meeting in the Christelijk Militair Tehuis on Langebeekstraat. The local OD was involved in espionage, such as mapping out Soesterberg airfield, and collecting weapons and ammunition. The most important task, however, is gathering intelligence about the enemy for the government in exile in England. Armed resistance has also been committed. The OD mainly consists of (former) military personnel. They meet in the air-raid shelter under the Onze Lieve Vrouwetoren. However, the group did not have a long life due to betrayal. One of the consequences of this was Buijens' arrest.

Buijens had already climbed through the barracks fence several times to search for weapons. One evening he found a loaded Luger pistol. He searched some more but was caught. He was pursued by a patrol on the run and was shot at near the Belgian Monument. Buijens shot back with his Luger and managed to escape. Buijens hid the Luger behind the Rijksopvoedingsgesticht (a reform school) on Utrechtseweg before going to his house on Schimmelpenninckkade, the place where Jan had stayed a few years earlier and was therefore well known. Shortly afterwards, on 25 February 1942, he was arrested for possession of firearms and committing violence against a German police officer.

While awaiting his execution, Jan Buijens was imprisoned in Scheveningen (the ‘Oranjehotel’).
On 13 June 1942, he was executed by firing squad, together with the two members of the England-bound Dutch resistance movement, Willem Hienekamp and the Jewish Jacob Tobias Poppers, on the Waalsdorpervlakte in Wassenaar.

After the war, on 1 March 1946, Jan was initially reburied in the Roman Catholic Cemetery in Bergen op Zoom. In 1952, the War Graves Foundation provided his grave with a memorial stone.
In 1971, at the request of the War Graves Foundation, his remains were reburied at the Dutch War Cemetery in Loenen, Apeldoorn. In addition to the monument for resistance fighters in the Rustenburg neighbourhood of Amersfoort, the name of Adrianus Johannes Buijens is also listed on a plaque in his birthplace Bergen op Zoom and the monument in his former place of residence Halsteren.

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• Photo 1: Herdenkingsstenen Amersfoort
• Adrianus Johannes Buijens |Herdenkingsstenen Amersfoort

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