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Limburg 1940-1945,
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Gerard Pontier
(Gerard Jacobus)
∗ 25-01-1888 Breda † 11-09-1976 Baarn (88)
- The clergy - Aid to Jews - NV - Underground Press - Survivors - Heerlen -
- Marcel Krutzen Aan het juiste adres bij dominee G.J. Pontier (1888-1976) Het Land van Herle 2011-03, p.115
- Gerard Pontier, Wikipedia • Nederlands
- Walter Süskind, Wikipedia • Nederlands • Deutsch • English • Español
- Dr. F. Cammaert, Het Verborgen Front – Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Doctorale scriptie 1994, Groningen
1. Hulpverlening aan joden
2. Illegale pers, p.1056 - Herman van Rens, Vervolgd in Limburg
1. Samenvatting door de auteur
2. Download - https://www.geni.com/people/Gerard-Jacobus-Pontier/6000000035025808946
The following information comes largely from an article about Gerard Pontier in Het Land van Herle by Marcel Crutzen. There you will also find a photograph from the collection of the Protestant Church Tempsplein in Heerlen, a detail of which we show on the right. [1]
We quote here first of all from a summary of it on the Dutch Wikipedia:
He wanted to become a missionary in Java and went to study theology at the Theological University in Kampen. His plans to become a missionary fell through. Instead, Pontier became a pastor in Waardhuizen in 1911. He engaged in evangelism and in 1915 welcomed the call of the Reformed church in Heerlen, which had just been established to minister to Reformed miners coming over from the north of the country. [2]
Jaap Musch from Amsterdam was looking for addresses in Limburg, where he could send Jewish children into hiding. These were rescued with the help of Walter Süskind [3] in Amsterdam, always with the consent of their parents.
With Pontier, Musch was at the right address. The 54-year-old pastor had already been sheltering a Jewish family from Poland for some time. He declared his willingness to cooperate with Musch’s search for hiding addresses and drew up a list of possible foster families from his eight hundred-member Reformed church community. Pontier also visited 41-year-old miner H. Bockma, father of eight children, who lived in a large farm house on the outskirts of Heerlen, and asked him if he would be willing to take Musch in. Bockma agreed and soon became one of the most important supporters of the N.V. in South Limburg. [4.1]
Gerard Pontier was also involved in the distribution of the underground newspaper Trouw, which became a daily newspaper after the war:
The Trouw was soon distributed in South Limburg and shortly afterwards also in the rest of the province. The home of C.H.J. Putters in Heerlen became the new central Trouw address and the home of M.J.H. Edelhausen served as the collective address. In addition to eight regular distributors, L.0. people, K.P. people, Jewish helpers such as Pastor G.J. Pontier and helpers of Allied refugees also took part in the distribution in the Heerlen region. [4.2]
On November 6, 1943, Gerard Pontier was arrested because a letter addressed to him was found in the possession of a person in hiding when he was arrested. The Jewish people in hiding in the Pontier house happened to be away from home and were immediately given a new address.
Pontier was taken to the prison in Maastricht. He was held there for three days. Then he was transported to the Oranjehotel.
...
Pontier was locked in an isolation cell and physically abused.
...
On May 17, 1944, after six months of imprisonment, Pontier was released. On his release from prison, he was instructed not to do “wrong things”. [1]
Gerard Pontier is proof of Herman van Rens’ thesis that it makes a big difference when charismatic people take the lead when it is about offering resistance. In a summary of his book Vervolgd in Limburg, he writes:
In the creation of group norms, the attitude and example of a small number of moral leaders who show the way to the members of the group plays a major role. In Limburg during the war, both the option to help as well as the one to look the other way proved to be contagious. A help-oriented society of enablement seemed to thrive there, especially in safe small societies where the members and their leaders knew and trusted each other. [5]
As a result, many people join in who need just that one push. Pontier fulfilled this function for the Reformed community in Heerlen and the surrounding area.
Footnotes