Ecury, Segundo Jorge Adelberto, “Boy”.

Ecury, Segundo Jorge Adelberto, “Boy”, born 23-04-1922 in Oranjestad, Aruba, an island of the Dutch Antilles, Brothers and sisters. of Aura Maria Estella Ecury; Hubert Ecury; Nora Ecury; Elva Ecury; Livia Ecury Nicolin and Nydia Maria Enrica Ecury .

Ecury, “Boy” was born as the seventh of thirteen children from a Catholic family, the son of wealthy businessman Nicasio Segundo ‘Dundun’ Ecury and Ana Paulina Wilhelmina, born Ernst. Nydia  They lived in a villa in the Schelpstraat, better known as the Groene Huis. After his secondary school years, Boy left for the Netherlands in 1937, where he obtained a business diploma at the Instituut Saint-Louis in Oudenbosch..

Confronted with the violence, misery, domination and discrimination, Ecury took a fierce and provocative stance towards the German occupier. This led to him being active in the resistance from the beginning of the war, initially together with his best friend, Luis Alberto José de Lannoy, a fellow student from Curaçao who was later joined by Delfincio Antonio “Boy” Hernandez  Navarro . They communicated in Papiamentu via letters and together with him Ecury carried out attacks on German trucks loaded with firebombs, derailed trains, helped people in hiding and allied pilots in Tilburg and carried out various other sabotage actions for the resistance groups in The Hague. Resistance man Navarro  survived the war and After the war, Navarro would work as a lawyer in the Netherlands Antilles. He died in Den Haag, 17-11-1989, age 67.

After the war, Luis de Lannoy also returned to Curaçao where he took over his father’s pharmacy. He remained active in society as chairman of the Stichting Vacantieoorden van het Wit-Gele Kruis, which provided vacations for poor children, and he was the initiator of the annual Bisinja collection campaign for goods for the underprivileged. He was also involved in the Zeemanshuis “Stella Maria” for the care of seamen. Luis died on 05-03-1971 at the age of 52 in his hometown of Willemstad.

In 1942 Ecury had to leave Tilburg because it became too dangerous for him there. He went into hiding at various addresses in Oisterwijk, Delft and Rotterdam and joined a resistance group in Oisterwijk. When his friend De Lannoy was arrested after betrayal on 10-02-1944, Boy attempted to free them from prison in Utrecht but failed. After this, Ecury with his dark appearance also began to stand out too much in Oisterwijk. At the end of 1944 he joined the resistance groups in The Hague where he prepared and committed actions, including the liquidation of a member of the NSB.

The NSB (National Socialist Movement) is a Dutch fascist political party, founded in 1931. In the Netherlands, as in other countries, there is a lot of unemployment and poverty. The followers of the NSB hope for a better future with one strong party and one leader.Anton Adrian “Ad” Mussert 

   one of the founders – is the leader.

Death and burial ground of Ecury, Segundo Jorge Adelberto, “Boy”.

On Sunday 05-11-1944, after attending high mass in the H. Elisabeth parish, Boy Ecury was arrested in Rotterdam, with weapons in his pocket. This happened right in front of the building of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) . He had been betrayed by an acquaintance,Cornelis “Kees” Bitter. Bitter was responsible for betraying a large number of resistance fighters from Rotterdam and The Hague from November 1944 onwards. Bitter was found guilty and liquidated by the resistance. On the evening of 05-01-1945 he was drugged with chloroform and given a cyanide injection. However, this did not work and he was then shot in the head, age 25  His remains were sewn into a jute bag and thrown into the Boerengat, weighted down with bricks. The remains were never found and Bitter was officially declared dead at the end of the 1960s.

Ecury was transferred to the prison the Oranjehotel in Scheveningen . Ecury was executed on 06-11-1944 on the Waalsdorpervlakte.

   In 1947 his remains were reburied with military honors in Aruba.

Polygoon newsreel from 1947 about Boy Ecury’s reburial with military honors in Aruba.

The monument for Boy Ecury in Oranjestad is a bust of white natural stone, placed on a columnar pedestal with various ornaments in relief.TextsThe text on the front of the pedestal is a passage from the Bible and reads:’NO ONE HAS GREATER LOVE THAN HE,WHO GIVES HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS.JOHN 15-13.’  The monument for Boy Ecury in Oranjestad is a bust of white natural stone, placed on a columnar pedestal with various ornaments in relief.

Segundo Jorge Adelberto, “Boy” Ecury is buried at the Roman Catholic cemetery of Oranjestad. GXG8+W55, Caya Ernesto Petronia, Oranjestad, Aruba.

Message(s), tips or interesting graves for the webmaster:    robhopmans@outlook.com