Keijer, Jannes Luitje.

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Keijer, Jannes Luitje, born on 03-08-1895, in Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands, his father, Lucas Keijer, was 35 and his mother, Alida Geertruida, born Ploeger, was 30. Jannes married Annechien Borghorst on 23-03-1922, in Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands. Jannes had two brothers, Ofko Wieger Keijer,1893–1973 and Joannes Luitje Keijer, 1895–1944.

Jannes Keijer was a tram driver before becoming a police officer in 1923. In the 1930s, Keijer served as a traffic police officer. During the German occupation, he was added to the team assisting the Security Service: the Special Investigation. His daughter, Alida Geertruida Keijer, also got a job at the Scholtenhuis as an administrative assistant.

When the German occupation of the Netherlands became a reality in May 1940, the legal and administrative power had to be given a logistical form. Despite the fact that the Netherlands was only a small part of the “Thousand-Year Reich,” it was home to many people. Control was needed, oversight, and in case of uprisings and resistance, swift and accurate action had to be possible. The Sicherheitsdienst (SD) was deployed for this purpose. The SD chose the Scholtenhuis on the Grote Markt as their headquarters. The building exuded the grandeur the Nazis loved; it was centrally located and large enough to serve as the headquarters for the Außenstelle in the North.

Partly due to these interrogations and the methods used, the Scholtenhuis earned its epithet “infamous.” Prisoners were beaten and kicked, punched in the stomach with rubber batons, beaten unconscious and revived, only to be beaten unconscious again. The gruesome “bathtub method” was also used here: the prisoner was submerged in a cold water bath until he was on the verge of drowning. Then he was pulled up by his hair, and if he didn’t reveal the desired information, he was dunked again.

The biggest executioner there was Robert Wilhelm Lehnhof, alias the Executioner of Groningen,

  German SD member and war criminal, alias the Executioner of Groningen.

The Keijer family had moved to Groningen and was living in the house of a deported Jew. On 01-12-1943, Keijer was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant/Oberleutnant. The next step was to succeed his boss, Anne Jannes Elsinga,

Elsinga, Anne Jannes. who was assassinated by the resistance on 31-12-1943. The liquidation of Anne Jannes Elsinga took place after the top of the LO and KP decided shortly after Christmas 1943 that NSB member Elsinga should be liquidated. The NSB was under command of Anton Adrian Mussert

Elsinga had found out who the people behind the illegal newspaper Trouw in Bedum were. The mission was carried out by resistance fighter Reint Dijkema on 31-12-1943, on the Eendrachtsbrug in Groningen.

Dijkema came from a Reformed family in Groningen. His father worked as a doctor. Reint had 4 brothers and 2 sisters. In his youth, he lived in Siddeburen. After elementary school, he attended the Christian HBS in Groningen.   After his final exams, he studied medicine in Groningen. He was a member of the Reformed student association VERA. In 1940, his parents moved to Groningen and he went back to live at home. Reint Dijkema, age 24 was geëxecuteerd in Kamp Vught.

Keijer also witnessed the Silbertanne operation up close after the murder of his boss. In Bedum, Keijer had good contacts with an NSB member who had been assigned to him as a bodyguard. He actually belonged to the resistance and passed on a lot of useful information until it was decided that Keijer was becoming too dangerous.

Not only were residents of the villages arrested. Even travelers who happened to be passing thru and were of the dangerous age were seized. Winsum was also on the SD’s blacklist. Forty-five people were caught here. Cornelis Heslinga,

died, age 47, on 13-07-1944 in Leusden, camp Amersfoort, Cornelis Bolhuis,

died on 09-12-1944, age 24, in Ammendorf. S. van Dijk, Reinder. Tuitman, and Sijbe Wendelaar never returned from captivity. Heslinga died a few months later in Amersfoort, while the others met their deaths in Germany.

Death and burial ground of Keijer, Jannes Luitje.

On 22-04-1944, Jannes Keijer was shot dead by the resistance on the station of Bedum. A large Silbertanne action followed. Anne Luitje Keijer is buried at the only German Military Cemetery in the Netherlands, located in IJsselstein. Section AT-5-116.

 

 

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