Monument Titus Brandsma

The monument to Titus Brandsma was erected in memory of father Titus Brandsma who died on July 26, 1942 in the Bavarian concentration camp Dachau as a martyr of faith.

At an early stage, Brandsma warned of the dangers of emerging National Socialism through publications in daily and weekly newspapers and during lectures and lectures. He condemned the anti-Jewish measures of the Hitler regime even before the occupation. In mid-1936, for example, he was a member of the Committee of Vigilance against National Socialism, set up by Dutch scholars and artists.

During the Second World War, Brandsma, as chaplain of the Dutch Catholic Dagbladpers, soon came into conflict with the occupying forces after writing guidelines for Catholic journalists. The cooperation with the Archbishop of Utrecht, Dr. Jan de Jong, was very great, since these two great Catholic leaders were on the same wavelength.

When the occupier issued a ban on admitting Jewish students to schools, a letter was immediately sent to all school boards stating that the church did not distinguish between gender, nation or race. On December 18, 1941, it was reported that the Roman Catholic newspapers had to refuse advertisements from the National Socialist Movement (NSB) on grounds of principle.

As a result of these resistance activities, Brandsma was arrested by the Gestapo on 19 January 1942 and transferred to the Scheveningen penitentiary. He then ended up in concentration camp Dachau via camp Amerfoort and the prison Kleve. After several weeks of hardship and abuse, he was admitted to the camp hospital, exhausted and critically ill. After some medical experiments, a camp doctor ended his life there on July 26, 1942 with a lethal injection.

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Source

• Text: Bert Deelman
• Photos: Bert Deelman
• Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 mei