Stumbling Stone Steegstraat

This stumbling stone commemorates resistance member Alphons Smeets.

Alphons Smeets was a farmer and fruitmerchant in Eijsden and joined resistance group 'Luc'. This resistance group also included his brother Hubert Smeets and Count Raphaël de Liedekerke de Phailhe from Eijsden.

He lived in a farmhouse on Steegstraat and hid Jewish refugees, escaped prisoners of war and pilots in his barns, in order to later get them across the nearby border with Belgium.

Eventually, the German SD (Sicherheids Dienst) led by Max Strobl and Richard Nitsch would dismantle the resistance network in 1942 through counterintelligence, and several people were arrested on October 7th, 1942.
Among them Jules Goffin, Alphons and Hubert Smeets and Count Raphaël de Liedekerke. Nic Erkens was arrested at his hidingplace with his sisters in Sittard on Nov. 11th, 1942.

After his arrest, Alphons was put on transport to fort Rhijnauwen in Utrecht and was shot on October 9th, 1943. On the same day, several members of the resistance including his brother Hubert, doctor Jules Goffin (Voeren, B) and Nic Erkens were executed here. On the location where the execution site was, a monument was erected in the presence of the Countess de Liedekerke de Lichervelde and the wife of Nic Erkens, Bertha Erkens, on after the war. See photo 2.

Stolpersteine are an initiative since 1997 by German artist Gunter Demnig. He began by placing the first Stolperstein in the Berlin's Kreuzberg district. Since then, there have been placed Stolpersteine in many countries.

The stones are a reminder of the Holocaust in World War II.
A Stolperstein is a 10 x 10 cm concrete stone, brass at the top in which the name, date of birth and death and place of death is stamped. The Stolperstein is placed in the sidewalk in front of the victim's former home.

Gunter Demnig in that way provided each victim his own monument. His motto is: "A HUMAN BEING IS FORGOTTEN ONLY WHEN HIS OR HER NAME IS FORGOTTEN".

The village of Borne was the first place in the Netherlands where Stolpersteine were placed on November 29th, 2007.

This one was laid March 13th, 2019.

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Source

• Text: Ed Lewandowski
• Photos: Ed Lewandowski
• Het Hannibal spiel, J. van Lieshout