Kloosterstraat 5

Jacob Berkhout was born on August 28, 1904 in Culemborg. Because of the profession of father Berkhout as “Klerk der Posterijen en Telegraphie” the family moved regularly as father Berkhout was promoted within the postal service. The work brought the family and their seven children to The Hague, Amsterdam and Asten, among other places, where he was director of the Post Office. Jacob Berkhout married Johanna van den Muijsenberg in October 1934. The couple lived at Kloosterstraat 203a in Heythuysen. Jacob worked in Heythuysen as an independent electrician.

During the Second World War, the sister of Jacob Berkhout, Marie Berkhout worked in the linen room of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Stoomboot Maatschappij in Amsterdam. Her Jewish colleague Elisabeth Prijs-Elsas, a mother of three children, was expecting her fourth child at the time. Marie Berkhout regularly helped her illegally with receipts, needed to feed herself and her children. Her husband, Joseph Price, had gone into hiding before.

Due to the increasing and oppressive anti-Jewish measures by the German occupiers, the Price family started looking for hiding places for the children in 1942. Through sister Marie Berkhout, daughter Carla “Keetje” Prijs ended up with the family of Jacob Berkhout in Heythuysen. Later, mother Elisabeth Prijs followed with baby Simon Prijs. Brother Philip Prijs was housed with the mother of Johanna Berkhout in Amsterdam and sister Klara Prijs on the farm of the Brouwers family in Neer.

Elisabeth Price and her two children felt safe with the Berkhout family and were treated as members of the family. They did not have to pay for their stay. However, for their own safety, they had to stay inside. For emergencies, the handy Jacob Berkhout set up a hiding room behind a false wall. Jacob Berkhout depended on his sources in the resistance in Amsterdam and Heythuysen for his livelihood and the necessary distribution vouchers.

On Saturday morning, June 10, 1944, things went horribly wrong. Four Dutch detectives from the Amsterdam Jewish Affairs Bureau came to Heythuysen. By betrayal, the detectives had obtained the names of the Jewish people in hiding and the two addresses where they were housed in Heythuysen.

First the Jew hunters went to the Kloosterstraat. Ad Berkhout would turn 3 the next day and the family was busy preparing for his birthday. During the search, Elisabeth and Carla Price managed to hide in the secret room. Baby Simon, however, was still in his crib. Johanna Berkhout tried during these chaotic moments to convince the Jew hunters that Simon was her own baby, but unfortunately the detectives discovered that Simon had been circumcised and therefore knew that they had a bite. The house was thoroughly searched. In a post-war police report, Elisabeth Price talks about their discovery; “A few moments later I heard footsteps coming up from our hiding place. Then I heard,
that the wall in which was the entrance to our hiding place was kicked at several places. Suddenly the door collapsed and I saw a person with a gun yelling; “Come out or you will see something else”.

The shelter provider Berkhout was also arrested. He received an offer from the Jew hunters: in exchange for other addresses where Jews were hiding, he would not be arrested. Jacob refused and was taken.

The 5 Jewish people in hiding went to Westerbork transit camp 10 days later. Mother Prijs-Elsas and the two children were transported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp 6 weeks later. Here they ended up in the so-called “star camp”. An exchange camp for Jews that the German government wanted to exchange for German citizens on Allied territory. They were allowed to wear their own clothes, with the yellow star of David on it. They had better light than their fellow sufferers in the regular camp, but also had to participate in forced labour. On April 10, 1945, the camp was evacuated by train to Theresienstadt concentration camp due to the approaching Allied armies. The train was intercepted by Soviet troops on April 23, 1945 near the German town of Tröbitz. The Prijs family survived the war.

Jacob Berkhout was transferred to block 19 of concentration camp Vught on 6 July 1944. Because of his knowledge of electrical engineering he was employed by the “Philips Kommando”. From February 1943 to the summer of 1944, the Philips electronics company had a workshop in the Vught concentration camp where prisoners manufactured razors, squeegees and other articles. On September 6, 1944, he was deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He stayed here until October 1, 1944, after which he was first put to work at the Heinkel
aircraft factories and later at the Arado aircraft factories. He was spotted there in mid-October 1944, after which he was transported to Neuengamme concentration camp. According to witness statements at the Dutch Red Cross, Jacob was seen on 2 May 1945 during the liberation of subcamp Malchow. He was then hospitalized by the Russians. His death was determined by the Red Cross, characteristic of the chaotic situation at that time, on "No earlier than May 3, 1945 and no later than May 31, 1945".

Recordado aquí

¿Hay aquí alguna piedra dañada o desaparecida? Avísenos por correo electrónico