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Limburg 1940-1945,
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The fallen resistance people in Limburg
Lodewijk Franssen was a shopkeeper. On Sunday, October 18, 1944, a so-called church raid took also place in Kronenberg and Sevenum: all men in the church were rounded up and taken to Germany for forced labor.
Detailed reports of the church raid and other events can be found at tienray75jaarbevrijd.nl, about each village between Peel and Maas separately. With translation button at the bottom left. [1]
Lodewijk Franssen too was taken to the Reichswerke Hermann Göring (short: Hermann-Göring-Werke) [2] near Salzgitter. There, in the countryside, for the purpose of warfare, a huge complex of blast furnaces and other industry had been built up. The victims of the church raid were locked up in a camp near the village of Watenstedt. That is also where Louis died. [3]
Click on the Salzgitter-Watenstedt link above for more information and more links.
See also OpenStreetMap [4] and Salzgitter-Watenstedt concentration camp on the German Wikipedia. [5]
Lodewijk Franssen was buried in the foreigners’ cemetery (Ausländerfriedhof) named Jammertal (valley of tears) [6] and reburied on 17 December 1953 on the Dutch Field of Honour in Hannover, grave F47. [3][8]
At tienray75yearbevrijd.nl we read about the deportees from Kronenberg:
Of the 75 deportees, nine did not return. In July 1945 the last survivors came home. [1]
Footnotes