Bouman, Martinus Antonius Marie.

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Bouman, Martinus Antonius Marie, born 05-05-1899 in Gouda, the son of Martinus Bouman (died 11-05-1901 Gouda) and Alida Jacoba Hulstkamp (died 20-11-1933 Gouda).Martinus married to Johanna Margaretha der Kinderen (born in Surabaya, Dutch East Indies). The couple had two children: Jeannette and Leonarda Hendrika. Chief Inspector Crisis Control Service. Remonstrant. Member of the resistance under the pseudonym Bob. Martinus was known as a steadfast and courageous man.

Martinus had been honorably discharged as First Lieutenant of the Infantry of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army due to disability just before the war. At the beginning of the war he joined the resistance and was assigned to the Staff of Region 9 (Limburg) of the resistance organization Orde Dienst. The Ordedienst (OD) was an important illegal organisation in the Netherlands during the Second World War. Until 1942, when the illegal National Organisation for Assistance to People in Hiding (LO) was formalised, it was most likely the largest secret anti-German organisation in the Netherlands, although exact figures are lacking. The National Organization for Assistance to People in Hiding (LO) was a Dutch resistance movement during the Second World War between mid-1942 and May 1945. Helena Theodora Kuipers-Rietberg (Winterswijk, 26-05-1893 – Ravensbrück, 27-12-1944) was a Dutch resistance fighter who played a major role in the Second World War. She was the great and silent force behind the National Organization for Assistance to People in Hiding. In the resistance she was called Aunt Riek.

Martinus was also Chief Controller of the Central Control Service, a job as a civil servant that allowed him to do a lot of resistance work with his official car. Despite his physical disabilities he led and organized many resistance activities. He helped many members of allied aircrews and prisoners of war who had escaped from Germany to safer places. When two of his employees were arrested, the German occupiers proclaimed that they would be shot if Bouman did not report himself.

During the April-May strike of 1943 he reported to the German authorities to prevent the arrest of other employees of his service. Together with his CCD colleagues Peter Leonard Ruijters, age 50

and Leendert Theodorus Brouwer he was sentenced to death by the Polizeistandgericht in Maastricht on Sunday afternoon 02-05-1943 for inciting a strike. Later that day the three men were shot together with four others on the heath near Well. The handicapped Bouman (he walked with a stick) was too weak to stand before the fifteen-man firing squad. SS-Hautpscharführer Richard Heinrich Georg Nitsch Richard Heinrich Georg Nitsch (01-11-1908 in Tostedt-Todtglüsingen (Lower Saxony); † 1990) was a German Polizist in the Time of National Socialism. Während des Zweiten Weltkriegs währ er in de besetzten Nederlanden als Angehöriger der Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo) in de Provinz Limburg für den großen Anzahl von Menschen responsible. After Limburg was liberated, Nitsch fled to Friesland in November 1944. On 22-05-1945 he surrendered to the Canadians in IJmuiden. It took until June 1946 before it was discovered that prisoner Nitsch had a lot on his conscience. He was transported to the Netherlands from a German POW camp in Esterwegen. In the Netherlands, Nitsch heard the death penalty demanded in a trial at the Special Court in Maastricht. He was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment for nine imposed executions and multiple tortures. His sentence was commuted to 22 years and nine months in April 1959. The following year, he was released and deported to the Federal Republic as an “undesirable alien”. This was in line with Dutch policy, whereby most war criminals were released prematurely. Shortly after his release, he and his wife moved in with their son, who lived in Bad Bentheim. He died in 1993.

Nitsch allowed him to undergo his execution sitting on a platform in front of a birch tree. His last words were: “Long live the fatherland, long live the queen”. On 31-03-1952, Martinus was posthumously registered in the register of Knights 4th class Military Order of William by Royal Decree no. 98. The then Queen Juliana presented the award to the widow on 10-08-1953 at Soestdijk Palace in the presence of his two daughters. Long before the outbreak of the Second World War, Bouman was one of the few active fighters against National Socialism under the pseudonym ‘Eikenhout’. Despite his multiple sclerosis, which he contracted in the tropics, he collected all kinds of information about what was happening in the German-Limburg border area. During his resistance period, Bouman set up a stage service for escaped French prisoners of war, who returned to their homeland via the Netherlands and Belgium. He also provided assistance to crashed Allied pilots, for which he posthumously received American, British and French awards. In Roermond, the Bob Boumanstraat is named after him.

Martinus Bouman also worked with the Bert Poels family of the Zwarte Plak  in Horst America. where many threatened people and lost pilots were taken in on their farm. The resistance monument De Zwarte Plak on the railway line along the Griendtveenseweg in America (Limburg) is a monument in honour of the resistance at the Zwarte Plak. On 5 September (Mad Tuesday), resistance fighters Alfons de Bruin and Martin van de Einden sabotaged the railway line that ran along here. However, they were caught red-handed by German soldiers who beat the two to death on the spot. The monument was erected at that location. The victims of the Second World War in general and the resistance group “De Zwarte Plak” in particular are honoured and commemorated here annually on 4 May at the memorial wall. Two plaques have been placed on the wall with the names of the resistance fighters who lost their lives during the war at the Zwarte Plak and the surrounding area: Frits de Bruijn, Martinis Antonius  van den Eijnden, Jacobus Gerardus Poels,   Pastor. Henri Vullinghs, M.A.M. Bouman, Nico.C. v. Oosterhout, Cor. K. Noordermeer, Lois Albert Lansdorp, H.G. Driessen, J.M. Starren and G.W. Ahout. “De Zwarte Plak” was one of the many resistance groups in the Netherlands. Their headquarters was the Antoniushoeve of the Poels family. Various books and newspaper articles have been published about the resistance on and around the Zwarte Plak.

Bouman, Martinus Antonius Marie is buried at the Nederlands Ereveld Loenen/ Dutch Field of Honor on Groenendaalseweg 68 te Loenen, Section: E. Grave: 55.

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

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