Memorial It Heidenskip

Commemorative plaque It Heidenskip

Text on the plaque:

Drama at the Koaidyk in 1943

Hendrik Kuiper, born 31.10.1885 in Gaastmeer, married to Neeltje Westra from his native village, was a cattle farmer nearby at the Inthiemafeart in It Heidenskip. They provide shelter for people in hiding during the war. Because one of their people in hiding, Van E., had been quite casual in the train, fate appeared on Wednesday evening, June 16, 1943, in the person of the infamous SD officer Fransoo Exaverius Lammers from Bolsward and a few cronies in the yard of now Koaidyk 15.

Hendrik Kuiper is accused of helping people in hiding and listening to the English channel. Pending his trial, he is detained in cell 8, later cell 20, B453 of the House of Detention in Leeuwarden. From Sunday 20 June 1943 he writes letters home every Sunday.

About five months earlier, he assisted the pilot of a Focke-Wulf, presumably Erich Brühnke, which had crashed nearby; that country has since been referred to as 'Flygtúchlân'. That fact is regarded as a mitigating circumstance, but the verdict is, as Kuiper reported to his wife on July 23, 1943: two years and three months in prison, also confiscation of the radio, and a thousand guilders fine, or if this is not paid, two additional months in prison. He decides not to appeal, but will submit a request for a pardon in September. On 6 October 1943 this was rejected by the Reichskommissar für die besetzten niederländischen Gebiete 'abgelehnt'.

On September 3, 1943, he was transferred to Utrecht and then to Kleve. At the beginning of October he is transported to Essen and two days later to nearby Bochum. He works there in a clog factory, as he writes home in a compulsory letter in German on 24 October 1943. On 29 October 1943 transport to Wesseling camp near Siegburg follows. He is, he reports on June 1, 1944, in good health, except for some problems with boils, he works in the kitchen, cleans vegetables and coats potatoes, et cetera.

Around 17 September 1944 he was deported to Kassel and then brought to Frankfurt am Main in November. According to letters from a compatriot from Made, an evacuation will follow in March 1945 with approximately 1600 fellow sufferers, presumably to Bamberg. One Zondervan, an NSB member from Heemstede, believes to have seen Hendrik Kuiper, who had a small speech impediment and spoke somewhat gesticulating, in September 1945 in Erfurt - then the Russian zone, later the DDR.

After the war, Mrs. Kuiper, born 10.09.1895, tried to obtain certainty about her husband's fate via the Red Cross, among others, but all attempts were unsuccessful. Until 1967, with the help of a manager, she kept the farm on the Inthiemafeart in operation. She died on 20.3.1967 in Sneek.

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Source

• Text: Haintje Kuipers
• Photos: Haintje Kuipers