In Amerongen, the mayor, together with the cheering crowd, welcomed the Allies on 7 May. The strange thing was that there were still armed German soldiers in the village at that moment. They were standing about fifty metres from the town hall, where the mayor and his family were standing on the steps. A number of British soldiers remained behind to protect the population as the Allies moved on. The members of the BS were allowed to go home but were not permitted to walk the streets in groups. A number of SS men emerged from the nearby woods and made their way to the centre of Amerongen. There they encountered two armed BS members and shot one of them in the back. The mayor’s wife saw his body as she walked home with her husband after the liberation celebrations. She raised the alarm, and that is how the BS found out that someone had been killed, after they had already welcomed the Allies. Nineteen-year-old Henk van den Ham was left dead after being shot in the back by an SS soldier.
