The fallen resistance people in Limburg

Eelco Wigerius Maria Kortrijk (Eelco)

The photo to the right can be found on monument.vriendenkringneuengamme.nl/ [1], on forum.mestreechonline.nl [2] and on oorlogsgravenstichting.nl. [6]
Some photos from the family photo album. [3.3]
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the following is a summary of his life sketch on struikelsteentjes-maastricht.nl [3.1]

The waiter Eelco Kortrijk from Sneek and Gerda Odenkerken from Schin op Geul married in April 1943 in Arnhem, where they continued to live. But in June 1943 he was sent to Bochum in Germany for forced labor. After four months there he did not return from leave but went into hiding with his parents in Sneek.
In Sneek, Eelco came into contact with the resistance and did resistance work there.
Because there is no mention of what that resistance work consisted of, it is classified here as unorganized, see above.
In Sneek he also met the Maastricht photographer W.J. Coenen. He had to leave Sneek because he was being tracked down. He goes into hiding with his parents-in-law in Maastricht and later with Coenen, although he knows he is a member of the NSB. He thought this would give him extra protection. He was arrested on August 14, 1944.
His brother-in-law, J.A.A.G. Winckers, tried to get him released by the German official in charge Krönig at the Regional Labor Office. The latter finally agreed, but the commander of the AKD, the local chief of the State Police and member of the Waffen-SS Herbert Bikker [4], put a stop to this and thus caused the death of Eelco in a concentration camp.
The AKD (Arbeitskontrolldienst) was a very violent auxiliary police that mainly hunted people, who tried, not to be sent to Germany for forced labor. It consisted of Dutch national socialists and had its headquarters in camp Erika near Ommen.
Winckers witnessed after the war that Bikker did not want to release my brother-in-law, because if Krönig would give the order, then, according to Krönig, Bikker would arrest my brother-in-law Kortrijk again, however, for the fact that Kortrijk had a false stamp on his identity card.
Eelco came via Amersfoort to Neuengamme on September 10, 1944. [1]
According to oorlogsgravenstichting.nl [6] he died on February 7, 1945, but maastrichtsegevelstenen.nl [5] gives February 6, because of the extract of death from the municipality of Neuengamme.
After the war, W.J. Coenen was given a fairly light sentence because of his depression.
But Bikker was sentenced to death in June 1949, later commuted to life imprisonment. On Dec. 26, 1952, Bikker and six other convicted war criminals flee the Koepel prison in Breda. He settled in Germany. Because he served in the Waffen-SS, he is granted German citizenship in 1955. A German court later rules in 1957 that there is too little evidence for a conviction against Bikker and he is not extradited and prosecuted. Several more trials follow later but each time he is acquitted and he dies in 2008.
On October 3, 1946, Gerda, the widow of Eelco Kortrijk, received a message of condolence signed by the then Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands.
This person is listed in the “Erelijst 1940-1945” (Honor Roll of the Dutch Parliament). [6]

Footnotes

1. monument.vriendenkringneuengamme.nl Eelco Kortrijk
2. forum.mestreechonline.nl verzetsstrijders Maastricht
3. struikelsteentjes-maastricht.nl
   1. levensschets Eelco Kortrijk
   2. Struikelsteentje Kortrijk, Eelco Frankenstraat 195, 6224-GP Maastricht
   3. Foto’s
4. Herbertus Bikker, Wikipedia • Nederlands • Deutsch • English • Français
5. maastrichtsegevelstenen.nl
6. Erelijst 1940-1945
7. Oorlogsgravenstichting.nl