Date of birth:

March 18th, 1918 (Groningen, the Netherlands)

Date of death:

August 8th, 1996 (Grand Rapids-Kent/Michigan, United States)

Nationality:

Dutch

Catherinus "Case" Veldman was the leader of the K.P. (knokploeg) Noord-Drenthe (resistance fighting group) and operated under the name of "Kees".

Case was born in 1918 in Groningen, the fourth child of Grieko Veldman and Hendrika Ebelina Klok. Grieko was 31 years old and his occupation was listed as magazijnknecht (warehouse worker).

Case became involved in the war because some Jews knocked at the door begging to be hidden, for fear of their lives. They always had a hiding place in their house and hid many Jews and soldiers. The hiding place was never found, even though some of the Germans took all of their belongings and put swords though the walls to see if this was a hiding place. The hiding place was behind a the false wall of a closet upstairs. He also hid paratroopers of the allies. The Germans eventually stripped the house of everything. The only thing left behind was a plaque that read (in Dutch), "Our help comes from the Lord who made Heaven and Earth." (This plaque was on the wall of their home for the rest of their lives.)

Case was the commander of the K.P. (Knokploeg = knock gang) Noord Drenthe underground group in the Netherlands. The resistance team varied from 6 to 12 people, many of whom were killed during the war. The team's main work was to find hiding places for Jews and some Allies, raid city halls for ration cards, and transport weapons that were dropped from Allied airplanes in parachutes. Both Case and Martha had false ID’s as their names became known to the Nazis and they were wanted for arrest.

During World War II (1940-45) camp Westerbork was a few kilometers outside of this village. It was a transit camp where Dutch jews stayed until they were transferred to the extermination camps. Anne Frank was there. Jacob was 62 at the outbreak of the war, but that did not prevent him to participate in the resistance against the German occupation.

Because Case was hunted by the Nazis, Martha had to go into hiding. She hid in several places in Friesland, as Grandad went from place to place in the Netherlands helping out the resistance. One time Martha was hiding at her sister Pietje’s house, when she saw the Germans coming, so she left quickly with Aunt Fran. The Germans came and took Pietje’s husband, who would later be shot to death while digging his own grave. Meanwhile, Martha's son Henry was left safe at the house. Occasionally (every week or two), Case would come and visit Martha in Friesland by sneaking in through the backfield into the house. He didn’t want anyone to know where Martha was lest she would be betrayed or found out through a resister who was tortured in order to force them to give up information. This was the case with many prisoners that the Germans captured from the underground resistance -- they were tortured for information. It was not uncommon for a fellow Dutch person to betray another. Many were even part of the S.S. or were collaborators -- Dutch people working for the Germans in order to have freedom after the war.

Many times Case and some of the resistance would get into skirmishes with the German police. One time Case was even shot in the back of the head. As usual he kept running away, as was his practice. The bullet is still there today. Case in fact did kill some Germans during these skirmishes. His practice of running away as fast as he could got him out of trouble many times. One time he was at the home of Pietje, his sister-in-law whose husband had just died. He all at once saw the Germans coming down the road. In a split second he ran out the back door through another house and another. When the Germans saw his coat in the house and saw who he really was, the sirens came on and the whole village of German soldiers went looking for him. Thankfully, he was long gone.

Once Case helped to hide six Jews fighting with the allies. They hid them with a farmer who had a barn filled with hay. However, the Germans got wind of this and came to check out the barn. When they didn’t find them, German guards were placed at the barn entrance. This made escape for the six impossible. One night, Rudy Blatt, the leader of the hidden team, tried to sneak up on the guard and kill him noiselessly. However, he knocked something over on the way. Thinking it was a cat, the guard went to get some others. After the guard left, the six ran to safety. Many years later, Rudy and Case would meet once again, in the United States.

One of the most traumatic experiences Case had was the time when he was transporting weapons on his bike in saddlebags. As he was going through the town of Loon, NE of Assen, the Germans surrounded him and demanded to see his papers. There was no way out –- he prepared for death and offered up a prayer to God. However, the angels must have been with him because all of a sudden a German saw a bottle sticking out of his saddle bag, and since his fake ID said he was a nurse, (nurses and teachers were the only able-bodied males allowed to stay behind, the rest had to work at munitions factories) the Germans put the two together and let him go. A similar situation happened on when Case was with bicycling with a friend. It was obvious that they were transporting weapons and when a German motorcade passed them, he thought for sure they were doomed. However, it happened that only the first German on the motorcycle saw them and by the time he could signal the rest of the motorcade, they had gone beyond the sight of Case and his friend. Meanwhile they immediately ran into the field and sure enough the motorcade came back for them. However, they were long out of sight by that time. Case hardly ever biked during the day, only at night, in order to avoid capture. Even so, he did run into a German guard one night while riding his bike. Nearby houses had their windows darkened since bomb raids were a threat, so it was very dark. Both Case and the guard were scared of each other. The German asked for Case's identification, and since it was too dark to read it, he went inside a building to do so. Meanwhile Case ran off because "Papers were replaceable, people not."

In 1944 the German "Sicherheits Dienst" (Security Service) raided Case's in-laws, Jacob and Sara's farm. Jacob was arrested, together with 29-year old son kleine (younger) Frans and imprisoned them in the Assen jail (converted from the city hall). Both their names came up on the lists of people to be executed and meanwhile the farm was impounded. However, Case (alias Kees - Knokpleog K.P. Noord Drenthe) organized a raid on the Assen prison and freed Frans and his father. (See Rendezvous In Assen.) on 11 Dec 1944, freeing all 29 prisoners with no loss of life. A small side street near the site of the Assen city hall that was used as a prison during the war is named for the date of this raid.

On 7 April 1945, about a month before the liberation of the Netherlands, a spy parachuted into the area near Veenhuizen. Case, the leader of the Drenthe K.P. helped the spy to explore the area during that evening.

By mid-April, Case, leader of the North Drenthe K.P. was helping gather Canadian paratroopers in the area of Smilde to hide and organize into a large enough group to be a combat-worthy formation.

By royal decree, Case was awarded the "bronzen leeuw" (Bronze Lion) in 1952 for his bravery as a resistance fighter in the "knokploegen in Noord- en Zuid-Drenthe."

For more information on Veldman's life, see his Wikitree biography.

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Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)

Unit:

K.P. Noord-Drenthe, Landelijke Knokploegen (LKP), Nederlands Verzet

Awarded on:

May 26th, 1952

"He distinguished himself as the leader of a KP (Knokploeg) group in North Drenthe by performing particularly courageous and discreet deeds in the fight against the enemy, which has made a valuable contribution by organizing so-called arms drops, which were used in the liberation in April 1945, in particular in the fighting near Smilde and Appelscha. He was also personally present at the landing of a paratrooper, who was dropped for weapons training and cooperated with the French paratroopers, who landed at Appelscha.

During the raid on the House of Detention in Assen on 11 December 1944, he took care of the transport of 29 liberated prisoners.

He was a fearless leader of his group."

Nr. 1116, RD 26-05-1952 No. 15

• Photo 1: Family
• - Veldman, C. | Onderscheidingen | Defensie.nl
  - Case Veldman (1918-1996) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree