The fallen resistance people in Limburg

Charles Bongaerts
(Charles Marie Hubert Joseph)

Het Grote Gebod – L.O.

Married to Trees (Theresa) Dahmen. In 1940 Charles was a reserve officer in the Dutch army and during the five day battle of the Netherlands he fought on the so called “Grebbenberg Line”, that the Dutch army held to the very end, repulsing heavy assaults from the German forces. After this, Charles Bongaerts was the head of the fire department in Heerlen, center of the coal mining area and this gave him access to vehicles which enabled him to play a prominent part in the underground resistance. Because he had no intention of taking action only after the Germans had left, so he set up an active resistance group within the fire department and the OD, which also began to help prisoners of war escaped from Germany through his network of former soldiers. [1]
They put up airmen in their home and transported them south on the long journey to England via Belgium, France and Gibraltar or Switzerland. On one occasion Charles Bongaerts stopped a German convoy and, claiming to be on urgent business, got a mechanic to repair his vehicle while three American airmen were in the back. [2]
Before the war, he used to be a journalist at the daily newspaper Limburgsch Dagblad in Heerlen. Together with some others, he founded the resistance newspaper Het Vrije Volk (The Free People), not to be confused with the same-named post-war newspaper. [3]
It was directed mainly at miners and was very well informed, because they had their people everywhere, even at the SiPo in Maastricht! [4.1]
Later, in addition to the escaped POWs, other refugees came in, such as Jews. As a result of infiltration into the Bongaerts group by Vastenhout (Englandspiel), Peeters, Reijnders and J.M.W. Clevis were arrested on November 16, 1943. Van Megen was shot dead in Dohnson, Germany, on April 5, 1945. Peeters died in Venlo on June 24, 1947. He had not recovered from the hardships of the Buchenwald camp. Clevis was released in May 1944, Reijnders only after the liberation. (in Dutch)
Sources: Traces of War [5] and Cammaert [3] and especially [4]: Chapter IV §III. The Bongaerts group entangled in the Englandspiel: the Vastenhout affair.
He is buried in Ladelund. [6]
Charles Marie Hubert Joseph ( Charles ) Bongaerts is listed in the Erelijst 1940-1945 (Honor Roll of the Dutch Parliament). [7]

Footnotes

1. Dr. F. Cammaert, Het Verborgen Front – Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Doctorale scriptie 1994, Groningen
   3. Hulpverlening aan uit Duitsland ontvluchte (Franstalige) krijgsgevangenen, p.136
   2. Stalag Arnoldsweiler
2. Joseph Marie Phillipe Bongaerts DFC, FC, OHK1
3. 1. 1940-1945: Het Vrije Volk Heerlen, Enschede, Hengelo. → Lydia Winkel De ondergrondse pers 1940-1945
   2. Het Vrije Volk, dagblad
4. Dr. F. Cammaert, Het Verborgen Front – Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Doctorale scriptie 1994, Groningen
   1. 1. Illegale pers, p. 1077
   2. Hoofdstuk 2, p.85, Hoofdstuk 3, p.136, p.142
   3. Hoofdstuk IV §III. De groep-Bongaerts verstrikt in het Englandspiel: de affaire Vastenhout
5. https://www.tracesofwar.nl/persons/63848/Bongaerts-Charles-Marie-Hubert-Joseph.htm
6. Neuer Friedhof, K.Z. Anlage, Ladelund, 7 N
7. Erelijst 1940-1945
8. Oorlogsgravenstichting.nl
9. https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/nl/publications/het-verborgen-front(cc35a139-e781-46bd-b062-ede455ecb1d7).html