Scheepstra, Liepke.

Scheepstra, Liepke, born 01-11-1918 in Lioessens, a village in the municipality of Noardeast-Fryslân, in the Dutch province of Friesland. His parents were Jitze Scheepstra and Sjoukje Dijkstra. In 1924, the five-year-old Liepke moved with his parents to Schiermonnikoog, where he grew up. Before the war, he was a conscript corporal in the Police Corps. After the capitulation, he worked for over a year as a national constable. He resigned when his critical attitude toward the occupation caused too much friction with his superiors. At the end of 1941, he joined the AKU in Arnhem as a security officer. On 06-01-1942, he married Frouwke Elizabet Dijk (1917-2002). After the April-May strikes in 1943, he went into hiding with his wife and child because, as a former soldier, he refused to report for military captivity.

Even before going into hiding, Scheepstra was in contact with several employees of the LO, National Organization for Assistance to People,  NOAP, in Hiding. He was a co-founder of the affiliated National Sabotage Teams. Despite his age (24), he took on a leading role in it, partly because he knew how to handle weapons thanks to his military training and could instruct others on the subject.

By the National Organization for Assistance to Refugees (LO), he was appointed as the leader of the National Assault Teams (LKP) for the eastern half of the country, alongside Valstar, Leendert Marinus, alias Bertus de Vries  who took charge of the western part. Scheepstra used, among others, the aliases Gijs, Gjalt, and Jelt, but became most known as “Bob.”  

Liepke led the successful raid on the Koepelgevangenis/prison in Arnhem  on 11-06-1944, during which Fredrik (Frits) Slomp, pseudonym, Frits de Zwerver  and Henk Kruithof were liberated. In this and the subsequent liberation action, he enlisted, among others, the KP-Twente led by Johannes ter Horst  and the KP Utrecht led by Rein van der Haar (alias “Frits”). Also on 11-06-1944, during which 54 political prisoners were liberated, Scheepstra was in charge. It was the largest and most successful liberation action of the occupation period. The experiences gained during this were later shared with the Frisian KP leader Piet Oberman,  for the purpose of the raid on the House of Detention in Leeuwarden, part of the historic Blokhuispoort prison complex in Leeuwarden, on 08-12-1944. Resistance fighters used a forged inclusion warrant and phone deception to enter the prison non-violently. They overpowered the staff and captured incoming SD officers. They successfully freed 51 people (50 prisoners and 1 sympathetic guard named Tiemersma) without firing a single shot.

At the end of June 1944, Scheepstra was spotted in Zeist by the provocateur Bert Brune. Scheepstra had gone there with his wife from his then hiding address in Amersfoort, due to an appointment with Annie Bremmer.  Her fiancé police chief inspector Anthonie Dirk (Anton) van der Haar,

  leader of the Resistance group, KP-Utrecht, had been arrested due to his principled refusal to arrest Jewish residents as an accomplice of the Germans. A refusal with consequences, and the meeting aimed to discuss the possibility of freeing him.

Scheepstra went for a walk with Annie Bremmer while his wife stayed behind on a terrace. Upon his return to the terrace, she warned that there were SD members wandering around everyplace in the meantime. Scheepstra made a run for it and managed to escape, just like Bremmer, but his wife Frouwke was arrested and taken to the police station at Paardenveld in Utrecht. She was able to be rescued a few weeks later with the help of a police officer when she was to be transferred from the interrogation office to the Sicherheitsdienst for a staged “interrogation.”

In September 1944, Scheepstra contributed to the merging of the LKP, the Ordedienst, and the Raad van Verzet into the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten.

After the war, Scheepstra dedicated himself to the interests of survivors, documenting history, and conveying the motives for the resistance to later generations.

Scheepstra was honorably discharged from military service on 01-10-1958, and awarded the Military William Order, which he only accepted after the insistence of Queen Wilhelmina,

  “on behalf of all those others.” The British king awarded him the King’s Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom. After leaving the defense sector, he started a company that produced coffee machines, initially employing mostly former resistance fighters.

Death and burial ground of Scheepstra, Liepke.

Liepke Scheepstra passed away on 15-09-2002, age 83, in Amersfoort and is buried at the Municipal Cemetery (near the Reformed Church) on the island of Schiermonnikoog, Netherlands.

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