Schellekens, Theodore “Theo”.

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Schellekens, Theodore “Theo”, born 25-07-1924 in Veldhoven as the son of a coal merchant. The family lived at the beginning of what is now Run 5600, where the fire station is now located. Theo grew up in this house in Veldhoven. During the war, it was not uncommon for young people to appropriate ‘trophies’ that had been left behind after a plane crash, for example. Sometimes these trophies were merely considered a kind of souvenir, sometimes they could also be used, such as parachute dust. Theo and his brother Jan were involved in hiding parachute silk that they had found in a meadow near their home on 07-07-1944. In all probability, they were betrayed. In any case, they were arrested the next day with the use of much violence and imprisoned in the Amersfoort concentration camp. Both were sent on to the Neuengamme concentration camp,

southeast of Hamburg, on 10-10-1944 of that year on the last transport. Neuengamme is known for the fact that research was done on twins. Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, the Neuengamme camp became the largest concentration camp in Northwest Germany. Over 100,000 prisoners came through Neuengamme and its subcamps, 24 of which were for women. The verified death toll is 42,900: 14,000 in the main camp, 12,800 in the subcamps, and 16,100 in the death marches and bombings during the final weeks of World War II. Following Germany’s defeat in 1945, the British Army used the site as an internment camp for SS

and other Nazi officials. In 1948, the British transferred the land to the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which summarily demolished the camp’s wooden barracks and built in its stead a prison cell block, converting the former concentration camp site into two state prisons operated by the Hamburg authorities from 1950 to 2004. Following protests by various groups of survivors and allies, the site now serves as a memorial. It is situated 15 km southeast of the centre of Hamburg.

At the end of the war, the Germans wanted to destroy all traces of their gruesome experiments. Theo and Jan were then transferred to camp Sandbostel, under SS Standartenführer Max Pauly

in April 1945, a small village between Bremen and Hamburg. It was a prisoner of war camp. SS Standartenführer Max Pauly was tried by the British for war crimes with 13 others in the Curio Haus in Hamburg which was located in the British occupied sector of Germany. The trial lasted from 18 March to 13 May 1946.Paulye was found guilty and sentenced to death with 11 other defendants. He was never tried for the crimes committed at Stutthof. Pauly was executed by hanging by Albert Pierrepoint in Hamelin Prison on 08-10-1946, age 39. The conditions iin the camp were very miserable. When Stalag X B Sandbostel was liberated by the English at the end of April, this camp was also called Little Bergen-Belsen. That’s how bad the conditions were there. Sandbostel housed, among others, the prisoners from the Putten raid. Cornelis Gerhard Anton de Kom,

a well-known resistance fighter of Surinamese origin, also died there. The section where the concentration camp prisoners were kept was immediately burned down by the English because of all the dirt, diseases, etc.

Death and burial ground of Theodore “Theo” Schellekens.

The English set up an emergency hospital there immediately after the camp was liberated.In the meantime, the home front in Veldhoven had gained hope. Sjaan, Theo and Jan’s sister, told the following story in 2007: “One day, I still remember it like it was yesterday, we were standing at the location when the postman came to us. He handed my father two letters. They could also have been telegrams. He nervously opened them and started reading. It said: Your sons Theodorus and Johannes Schellekens have been found in the Sandbostel concentration camp and we hope that you will soon be reunited.” A few days later, the family received a card from Jan. A priest had written and posted it for him. Jan wrote that he had arrived in Lichtenvoorde in the Achterhoek with the first transport and was in an emergency hospital there. The second transport to Lichtenvoorde, however, brought bad news. A man from Roosendaal who had been next to Theo in the sick barracks in Sandbostel came to tell the sick Jan that when he woke up in the morning, he looked at Theo and saw that Theo was lying dead on his bed. The hardships had become too much for him. Theo died, 20 years old, on 02-05-1945, shortly before the liberation of the whole of the Netherlands.Initially he was buried at the hospital and then in a mass grave at the war cemetery of Sandbostel. In 1962 he was reburied in Loenen. His sister Sjaan in 2007: “Our Theo was reburied in December 1962 in Loenen on the Veluwe at the Ereveld of Eerbeek. He had been in a mass grave in Sandbostel for more than sixteen and a half years. My father and two sisters had gone there by train and the ceremony was very beautiful, because Theo was buried with military honours. The flag was flown at half-mast and the ‘Last Post’ was played. It was very impressive. On May 4, the day of remembrance of the dead, we still go to Loenen.”

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