Oosten, Harco van, born 06-08-1915, in Usquert, Groningen, Netherlands, 
the son of Jan van Oosten en Jakoba Folkers. On Saturday 02-05-1942, Harco married in Usquert, Provincialeweg 131, Anje “Annie” Blink, born in Riottum and the couple had one child, daughter Hanneke, born January 1944. After their marriage they went to live in Usquert, in a separate living area at the back of the building of the drapery shop of Jan Medendorp, also a resistance man. 
Jan Medendorp survived the war and passed away on 29-01-1989 in Uithuizen, Groningen, Netherlands, he was 80 years old.
Death and burial ground of Harco van Oosten.
Harco, who was a machine fitter/automotive mechanic and worked at the Bedumer Machinefabriek, was a member of the resistance. He was local commander of the Order Service (OD) Domestic Armed Forces (BS)
.
On Easter Sunday 01-04-1945, age 29, he was one of the OD men in the province of Groningen who were shot dead by the SD 
as part of the “Aktion Sommernacht”. With this SD action the leader of the SD wanted to deal a preemptive blow to the OD.
On Saturday 31 March, the code word ‘Aktion Sommernacht’ arrived at the Scholtenshuis and Lehnhof was put in charge of the action. He put together five commandos. The leaders of the commandos were given the list of names of the persons to be arrested and killed.
One of the commandos was led by Arnold Afferbach. The composition of that command is not fully known. It is clear that Jan Ale Visser 
was there and that Tjakko Jacob Jager had accompanied him as driver. Afferbach’s command had the assignment to arrest and/or kill people in Usquert, Baflo, Pieterburen, Kloosterburen, Leens and Aduard.
Anje (Annie) Blink, widow of Harco van Oosten, later stated in both the report and the official report of the interrogation that two people who spoke to each other from Groningen were present when her husband was arrested. One of them was the driver Tjakko Jager, born in Meeden and living in Groningen. The second Groninger was probably police officer Pieter Luchtenberg.
Afferbach’s command had to arrest the brother of the regional commander Marten van Til 
at Aduard, but he was not at home. The persons who had to be arrested in Baflo and Pieterburen were also not found. Harco van Oosten, the local leader of the BS, was on the list from Usquert, among others. The Germans knew that he hid or had hidden bracelets with ‘Orange’ on them. 
Well after midnight, Afferbach’s command arrived in Usquert. They first went to the Grenzaufsichtstelle 3 (Gast Drei or Gast 3). This was located in the villa of Hendrik Elema’s widow, Wadwerderweg 6. Because of border guards, a relatively large number of Germans were settled in Usquert.
The chief of the Gast at Usquert was Bohle, who showed them the way in Usquert. First, the NSB mayor Willem Dijk was called out of bed. Bohle spoke and asked Dijk if he knew where Van Oosten lived. When Dijk said that he did not know Van Oosten, Bohle said that Van Oosten had to live in the same house as a certain Medendorp. Mayor Dijk knew where Medendorp lived and he explained exactly that to the Germans. Because Medendorp had a well-known drapery shop in Usquert, Dijk expressed his surprise that Bohle did not know that. The commando drove to the indicated address, Usquert No. 131, and the car was parked next to the church. It was about four o’clock in the morning of Easter Sunday, April 1, when the doors and windows of Harco van Oosten’s house were banged violently. They shouted: “Does Medendorp live here?” When Harco said he lived there, he got the answer: “We should be there too.” When Harco came to the door in nightclothes, the Germans had already smashed the window in the door. Bohle first spoke and asked Van Oosten whether there were any Germans, evacuees or refugees in the house. When Harco’s wife, who was pregnant, came out of the bedroom, she was bitten in Dutch: “Go back to your nest.”
Van Oosten’s house was searched and the bracelets with ‘Oranje’ on them were found behind a hatch in the ceiling of an alcove (a broken box bed). Both Harco and his wife Anje Blink were questioned and threatened. In the end Harco was taken away. As he was being taken away, Harco said to the men of the commando who arrested him: “Think about my wife”, to which he was snapped in response: “Do you also think about our women?”
One person from the German command, with a pistol in hand, took place on the right fender of the car in which Harco van Oosten was taken to the Gast on the Wadwerderweg. There he was probably interrogated again. Driver Tjakko Jager stated on 18-10-1945: “We drove back to the Gast where everyone got out and entered the service building. After a while the people of our Dienststelle returned with their detainees.” The command then left with Harco van Oosten via Warffum in the direction of Groningen.
Just past Breede, between Warffum and Baflo, Tjakko Jager was ordered to stop. Two men, including Jan Ale Visser, walked up a dirt road with Harco. Harco van Oosten was shot dead here around half past five in the morning of 01-04-1945. Tjakko Jager stated the following during the interrogation on 18-10-1945: “I then saw Visser shoot the detainee with a submachine gun. I saw two shots of fire in the dark.” Leaving Harco’s body behind, the commando left for Leens.
The next day, soldiers from De Gast came to Annie Blink to pick up Harco’s uniform, bicycle, identity card and wallet. Only the uniform and the bicycle came back after the war. Harco’s body was picked up by truck in the afternoon by his brother-in-law Harm van de Meer. The then eleven-year-old Jakob Medendorp still remembers well that Harco was brought home in the truck, lying under a rug in the back of the box, his feet sticking out from underneath. According to Jakob, the hat of Harco, with a hole pierced, was also returned to the widow. The list of OD officers from Usquert to be arrested also included the names of Jan Medendorp, Hendrik Jansen and Harm van der Molen.
Harco van Oosten was never able to see his unborn child. He is buried in Usquert General Cemetery in Section II, Row 9, Grave 1.
In Usquert, the Harco van Oostenstraat is named after him.
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