Joosten, Jan.

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Joosten, Jan, born 07-04-1906, in Hardenberg, Overijssel, Netherlands, the son of Hermannes Albertus Joosten, who  died 07-03-1952 and Berendina Haandrikman, Jan was married with Pieternella Johanna Hoekstra. Jan Joosten was called up as a conscript sergeant during the mobilization in 1939 – alternately a branch manager of a trade association and unemployed. During the war years, in his hometown of Haarlem, he tried in all kinds of ways to provide for his family – in January 1945 the sixth child was born – for example as a temporary baker/bread deliveryman, inspector, grocery deliveryman and night watchman at the Haarlemse Scheepsbouwmaatschappij. If necessary, the diaconie of the Reformed Church assisted financially. Since the end of 1943, Joosten has distributed the illegal magazine Trouw. In September 1944 he joined the BS. The Domestic Forces (BS; officially: Dutch Domestic Forces) formed an officially established grouping on 5 September 1944 of the actual resistance groups in the Netherlands that had little cooperation until then. The Domestic Forces therefore originated from the three most important resistance groups: the Ordedienst (OD), the National Organization for Aid to People in hiding/National Knokploegen (LO/LKP) and the Council of Resistance (RVV).Because there was a shortage of former resistance fighters, many other (young) men were able to join the BS after the war.

After some time Johan Adriaan Anton. van Meeteren appointed as section commander, 2nd company, Section II in Haarlem-Noord. Johan A.A. van Meeteren (October 8, 1908 – April 15, 1945, age 36, executed) pseudonym Haringsma, the black lieutenant, legal adviser by profession, married, 3 children. His last words “May my children grow upto true Dutchmen”.

As a former soldier, Joosten gave weapons instruction to various BS groups and was involved in sabotage activities. When on Sunday 18-03-1945, as a result of the betrayal of an illegal worker, part of the Haarlem-Noord group was rounded up, Joosten was also arrested by the Sipo, the Sicherheitspolizei (English: Security Police) in his home at Voorduinstraat 17 and transferred to the HvB at Weteringschans  in Amsterdam.

Death and burial ground of Joosten, Jan.

On 15-04-1945 Jan, age 39, was shot in Sint Pancras. As a straight Reformed, he came up against the Nazis. While the youth was busy playing baseball outside on the street, “his boys” used this as a cover to get into his house more or less unnoticed. He was one of the sub-commanders of Van Meeteren’s B.S. group “Jan Haring”. When he knew that the Germans were looking for him, he went to a safe house.He wanted to celebrate his birthday, April 7, at home. Somehow the S.D. the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service), usually called the SD, was a Nazi intelligence agency, notice that he was home. Presumably his house, as a suspicious address, has been monitored. In the early morning of April 8, his house was surrounded by the Waffen-SS. Before they stormed in, he managed to hide in the attic. His wife and children were locked in a bedroom by the Germans. He was discovered in his hiding place. Then his words were: “Shoot me right away, because that’s what you’re going to do to me.”

The commander of the execution team Johann Friedrich “Hans” Stöver, an SS man and former second commander of camp Amersfoort. During World War II, the Nazis used Kamp Amersfoort as a concentration camp. During the war years, about 40,000 people were held captive in the camp for a short or longer period of time. Hundreds of them died in the camp. They were shot or died of hardship. Today, a memorial center can be found at the former concentration camp. Stover was a brutal fellow. After the war he was initially sentenced to death and later life imprisonment, but he was released in 1960 and was able to lead a good life in Germany until the old age.89. Stöver was briefly in the news because he had filed a lawsuit for the loss of his civil servants’ boarding house..During the Second World War he was SS-Schutzhaftlagerführer I in Kamp Amersfoort. He was the second man under SS-Obersturmführer Walter Heinrich. Heinrich was given the task to select prisoners who were to be sent to Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. Of the 600 Dutch resistance fighters that Heinrich selected, 300 were killed there. Heinrich’s deat is unknown, missing since February 1945.

On 15-04-1945 Jan and Vermeeteren and nineteen others, including members of his resistance group, were shot in Sint Pancras as a reprisal for an attack on a train of the German army. The bodies were provisionally buried in a mass grave in the dunes near Overveen by order of the occupier. Later all rebuired at Bloemendaal honorary cemetery Sint Pancras is a village in the Dutch municipality of Dijk en Waard, just northeast of the city of Alkmaar in the province of North Holland, named after Saint Pancratius.

Jan Joosten, murdered on 15-04-1945, age 39, was shot in Sint Pancras is buried at the Bloemendaal honorary cemetery.

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

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