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Limburg 1940-1945,
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The fallen resistance people in Limburg
Mathieu Hoeymakers, abbreviated Jeu, is usually referred to as Jozef Mathijs Hoeijmakers in official documents. His father was Hendrik Hoeymakers, who also did not survive the war.
Jeu’s file with the OGS states: shot dead while doing illegal work. [1#4]
The mayor of Sevenum wrote on December 10, 1946, that Jeu Hoeymakers /Hoeijmakers belonged to the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (Domestic Forces) led by Lieutenant Gijberts.[1#8]
These BS had been formed toward the end of the war to bring together the armed resistance. In northern Limburg this was the LO, in which members of the Ordedienst (OD) also participated. There this bundling had already been a fact for a long time. Various camps had been set up in the surrounding forests, mainly by OD people, to receive the many people in hiding sent by the LO from Venlo and Roermond, and at the same time to serve as military training camps. They were provided with food by local farmers, including Jeu’s parents. They also had animals there to prevent them from being claimed by the Germans. Horses as hiders. On Sunday, October 8, 1944, Jeu, wearing women’s clothes to avoid being arrested by slave-hunting Germans, went into the forest to take care of the animals. He and his friends were discovered and Jeu was caught because a German heard him speaking. He was shot immediately, the others were taken away. [4]
On the same day, during the infamous church roundup, his father, two brothers and two brothers-in-law were deported to Germany for forced labor along with 75 other male residents of Kronenberg. Nine of them did not return. [3]
His father also died there of exhaustion.
There is a memorial with an information plaque at the spot in the forest where Jeu was killed. It reads:
On roundup day (October 8, 1944), Jeu Hoeijmakers was shot at this spot by a German soldier. Jeu was a delicately shaped young man of 20 and wore women’s clothes to pass himself off as a woman and thus to avoid being deported to Germany. He came to this place to look after the horse that was stabled here. Some men also hid here from the roundup. Unfortunately, some German soldiers also came to this place and arrested the men. A few words Jeu said to these men proved to be his undoing. The German soldier heard and then saw that Jeu was a man, said "You are not a woman" and shot him. A completely senseless and ruthless act. [2.2]
Read also a more detailed report by eyewitness Mart Roodbeen. [5]
Footnotes