The fallen resistance people in Limburg

Jacob Guillaume Houben (Jacques)

The miner Jacques Houben from Born probably worked in the nearby Staatsmijn Maurits in Geleen. In his file at the OGS he is listed as a tailor. [1#2]
It was/is not unusual for people to work in a profession other than the one for which they were trained.
In the same file, a form filled out about him by the municipality of Born states: On August 17, 1944, he was arrested by Germans as a person in hiding and presumably brought to Germany via Amersfoort. The person in question had gone into hiding because he had received an order to carry out work in Germany. [1#1]
This is how forced labor can be described too. The municipality does not seem to have known that he was also part of the resistance. Cammaert apparently knew this, because he wrote in his chapter on the RVV (Council of Resistance): Some couriers were killed, while two RVV members fell into German hands by coincidence. This happened to the miner J.G. Houben on August 17, 1944, when he was halted during a weapons transport in Geleen and was unable to identify himself. He died in German captivity. [2]
After the war, his widow tried to find out more about her husband’s fate. So she wrote to the Red Cross. Her only clue was information from the Nederlandse Staatscourant (the official government bulletin) of January 31, 1952, that he had probably died between March 16 and May 3, 1945. And that an unreliable source had reported a grave in the name of Jac Houben in or near Cologne. [1#9]
The OGS replied on October 11, 1965 that they only knew that he must have died around May 3, 1945 as a prisoner of Neuengamme. They could not say exactly where. The following possibilities were suggested: the Sandbostel concentration camp [3] or the disaster involving the Cap Arcona and two other ships in the Bay of Lübeck [4], in which 7,000 prisoners from Neuengamme perished. [1#6]

The Neuengamme Digital Memorial [5] gives the following prison history: Arrested on August 17, 1944, then imprisoned in Maastricht, Ommen, Amersfoort (August 26, 1944 to September 8, 1944) and Neuengamme from September 10, 1944, where he was in the satellite camps Husum-Schwesing (village of Engelsburg) [6], where prisoners had to work on the so-called Friesenwall, and in Meppen-Versen, where prisoners from Neuengamme had to work in brickworks, clay pits and peat extraction since November 1944. The Dutch Wikipedia says the following about this camp: Until March 1945, the Meppen-Versen camp remained an outpost of this concentration camp. As the Allies approached the camp, the remaining prisoners were led on foot via Meppen, Cloppenburg, Bremen and Hamburg to Neuengamme. The seriously ill and those unable to walk were taken by truck to Farge near Bremen. The 40 most seriously ill were shot on the spot. [7]
Jacob Guillaume ( Jacques ) Houben is listed in the Erelijst 1940-1945 (Honor Roll of the Dutch Parliament). [8]

Footnotes

1. Archief Oorlogsgravenstichting (@ Nationaal archief),
   Dossier Jacob Guillaume Houben • #1 • #2 • #6 • #9
2. Dr. F. Cammaert, Het Verborgen Front – Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Doctorale scriptie 1994, Groningen
   9. De Raad van Verzet in het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden, p.971
3. Monument Sandbostel • Nederlands • Deutsch • English • Français • Español • Português não disponível
4. Cap Arcona, Wikipedia • Nederlands • Deutsch • English • Français • Português
5. vriendenkringneuengamme.nl Jacob Guillaume Houben
6. 1. KZ-Gedenkstätte Husum-Schwesing
   2. KZ Husum-Schwesing, Wikipedia • Nederlands • Deutsch • English • Français • Português
7. Stalag VI B Versen, Wikipedia • Nederlands • Deutsch • English
8. Erelijst 1940-1945
9. Oorlogsgravenstichting.nl