Date of birth:

September 22nd, 1925 (Venlo, the Netherlands)

Date of death:

November 1st, 1944 (Zwickau/Saxony, Germany)

Nationality:

Dutch

Frans Gerard Marie Joseph Coehorst lived at 127 Hertog Reinoudsingel in Venlo. He was a son (5th out of 12 children) of Petrus Gerardus Josephus Coehorst (December 3, 1889 Venlo - † April 7, 1961 Venlo) and Johanna Maria Elisa Peters (August 12, 1894 Venlo - † September 10, 1971 Eindhoven). Frans Coehorst was not married and studied at the Sint-Thomascollege. He was of the Catholic faith, member of the resistance and part of the LO in Limburg.
The Grote Gebod mentions Frans as his alias, Cammaert mentions Van Aken. After final exam at the gymnasium he went to work as a runner and secretary of the provincial LO leader of Limburg Johannes Hendrikx (February 2, 1917 Venlo - † May 3, 1945 Oranienburg/Sachsenhausen), VHK, known by his nom de guerre Ambrosius. According to a eulogy in De Zwerver, the post war weekly of the LO/LKP, he had a dangerous and difficult task. Day in and day out, he toiled in favor of his fellow citizens. He traveled all across the
country with dangerous luggage.
On February 29, 1944 Frans was one of the 30 people apprehended by the SiPo. Earlier that month, resistance fighter J.H. Scheeres had been apprehended carrying a letter from the head of the hiders in Venlo and who, it was assumed, knew more about the underground organisation. SD agent Nitsch (Richard Heinrich George George Nitsch (November 1, 1908 Todtglüsingen, Duitsland) who was sentenced to life by a special court in Maastricht — confirmed by the Special Court of Appeal in Den Bosch and extradited to Germany on April 5, 1960) — managed to wrest names from the detainee.
After his arrest, the Germans tried to get Coehorst to talk by hanging him from his wrists for four days without giving him food or water. An attempt by the resistance in early April 1944, to get him out of the Maastricht prison was aborted as Coehorst – who was given number 9846 - and other detainees were transferred to the PDA on April 7, 1944
Eventually he ended up in Flossenbürg on September 21, 1944 where he was put to work in a car factory. Due to torture in Maastricht and possibly more abuse later on, his physical condition had deteriorated to such an extent that he succumbed early November 1944 in a hospital in Zwickau, utterly exhausted. He was buried in an anonymous grave in Zwickau.

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• - OGS Gedenkboek 37 - Duitsland, Oorlogsgravenstichting.
  - CAMMAERT, F, Het verborgen front. Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens, 1994.
  - Frans Gerard Marie Joseph Coehorst | Gemeentearchief Venlo
  - Frans Gerard Marie Joseph Coehorst
  - Sterben Frans Gerard Marie Joseph Coehorst am 1. November 1944 in Zwickau (Duitsland) (Niederlande); Open Archives
  - Further: J.C., In Memoriam Fons Berger, Harry Holla en Frans Coehorst, De Zwerver, weekblad LO-LKP, derde jaargang, nummer 48, 29 november 1947; Dodenboek Venlo, site historie.venlo.nl; Rogier van Aerde e.a., Het Grote Gebod. Gedenkboek van het verzet in LO en LKP, deel I en II, J.H. Kok NV en H. Nelissen, Bilthoven, meerdere drukken; NL-Verfahren (Niederländische Strafverfahren gegen Deutsche und Österreicher wegen im 2.Welkrieg begangener NS-Verbrechen), site www1.uva.nl.