Brugstraat 22

Herman was born on October 26, 1884 in Roosendaal as the son of Cornelis Verheijen and Maria Mastboom. He went to school in Oudenbosch and Kerkrade and lived in Dongen from 1905, where he married Johanna Bressers in 1907. Together they have nine children, seven of whom survive to adulthood. In Dongen he is alderman and deputy mayor and active in association life as chairman of the Royal Music Association Musis Sacrum. In 1914 he co-founded the Roman Catholic housing association De Goede Woning, of which he was chairman until his departure to Utrecht in 1932. In 1918 Herman joined the Provincial Council of North Brabant and in 1936 he was appointed mayor of Erp, after which he returned to the province from Utrecht. After the Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, he decided to stay on, just like many other mayors, to prevent his position from being transferred to an NSB member.

In the summer of 1944 he is confronted with the German decree to designate inhabitants to rebuild the bombed airfield in Volkel. Like his colleagues in Southeast Brabant, Herman refuses to comply and is arrested at home in front of his family not long after. Later that same day, German raid vans appear to pick up the men of the village, but the raid is of no avail; the community has already been warned and most of them are hiding, especially in 't Goor.

Herman, meanwhile removed from his position, is brought to camp Vught, from where he is deported to concentration camp Buchenwald. There he is forced to hard forced labor under deliberately bad conditions as part of Vernichtung durch Arbeit ('destruction through labour'). They work long days that start before sunrise with hours of roll call, even in the winter when it is extremely cold. Food and medical care are sorely lacking and because several of the prisoners have to sleep on wooden bunks at the same time, there is no form of privacy or hygiene. Infectious diseases and untreated wounds claim countless victims under these circumstances.

With his cheerfulness and courage he cheers up his fellow sufferers, but the hardships eventually become too much for him too. He succumbed to the effects of hypothermia, malnutrition and exhaustion on March 12, 1945 in Buchenwald. Herman turned 60 years old. He was preceded by his wife, who also died in 1942 at the age of 60. Since 2009, a new street in Erp bears the mayor's name.

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