Op de Berg 4

Henri Schepers is a tailor and lived with his employer, tailor Albert Joris(sen). He is the son of cigar maker Nicolaas Schepers from Elsloo, who is married to Maria Margaretha Cremers, also from Elsloo. Henri comes from a family with ten children. When the war starts, he is 25 years old and unmarried. He is the goalkeeper of the first team of football club Marsana in Meerssen.

In 1943, Schepers is forced to work in Aachen. From there he flees to Belgium and immediately joins the resistance: the White Brigades. He works for resistance groups in Liège and Tongeren and is known as Harrie and/or De Wit.

The Working Group Stumbling Stones would also like to know more about Henri. How good was he as a goalkeeper? Was he a good tailor, was he a jolly fellow? Did he go out in the village, which cafes did he visit? Was he religious? And also interesting, especially in light of how he is coming to his end: did he know Johannes van Hees van de Kruisstraat? It was practically around the corner from him.

And Meerssen was small in those days. Schepers has to pay with his death for his work in the resistance. On August 18, 1944, he falls into the trap set up for him by the Sicherheitspolizei in the Paviljoen, a café in Meerssen (where we would like to know!).
Life course Henri Schepers

He was betrayed by Gonnie Zeguers-Boere, a lady of pleasure in Maastricht and also a smuggler who thought she could secure her trade with the betrayal. She was protected by one of her sweethearts, Richard Nitsch of the Sicherheitspolizei, and she wanted to keep it that way.

In the Limburgs Dagblad of 16 November 1948 there is an article with the following content:

'Richard Nitsch called to account for many a cowardly murder – Deadly shots in the Pavilion in Meerssen –. With regard to the murder in the Pavilion in Meerssen, the witnesses are heard Peter Huls, driver in Eygelshoven and the innkeeper mr. J.L.M. Franssen from Meerssen. Mrs. Franssen, the third witness, was unable to attend. On the day in question, H.H. Schepers, witness Huls and wife Zeguers-Boere, secretly employed by the S.D. A written statement is read from the latter. The S.D. broke into the cafe, and shortly after the 'hands up' order, Schepers was shot by Nitsch. Schepers turned out to be in possession of a revolver and would not have raised his hands in time. Nitsch contradicts the witness Franssen on the question of whether Nitsch fired again immediately or after a certain pause gave Schepers a final shot. It is remarkable that Zeguers-Boere had asked the witness Huls to sit somewhere else, so that, as it turned out later, he was not in the line of fire between the door and Schepers'.

Gonnie Zeguers-Boere was sentenced to death in 1947, but after the war she was sentenced to 14 years in prison and T.B.R.

Henri Hubertus Schepers is buried on the Dutch Ereveld in Loenen (section A, grave 563).

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Op de Berg 4

Elsloo

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