Vellegendijk 17

Hendrik Jan Wiggers was born on December 29, 1886 in Aalten and married on June 17, 1920 to Aleida Meijnen, born on July 12, 1896, also in Aalten. It was his second marriage, his first wife had died in childbirth. Hendrik and Aleida had seven children, but with two children from the first marriage, the family consisted of eleven people. They lived at 17 Vellegendijk in Aalten, on a farm in the hamlet of Wolboom, a quiet and secluded place in a wooded area.

In October 1941, acts of sabotage were committed in the east of the country, and in response the German occupiers began to carry out raids in Twente and the Achterhoek. Jewish boys and men were arrested and deported to Mauthausen. The Jewish family Meijler, father Sally, mother Paula, and their sons Hanri and Arthur, were very worried and the men decided to go into hiding. After much effort they found a safe shelter with the Wiggers family. Hendrik had said to his wife that morning, "I hope there will be no Jews, but if they come I will not let them go." After a while the situation calmed down and the Meijlers returned home.

But in July 1942 the systematic hunt for the Jews began: whole families were taken from their homes and taken to the extermination camps via Westerbork. Again the Meijler family, now with mother Paula, looked for a hiding place and after a number of other addresses, which in the long run proved unsafe, they were again welcome at the Wiggers family. Mother Aleida took care of them and made sure that the children did not tell others.

In the meantime, father Hendrik became involved in the resistance in Aalten. The resistance group that arranged shelter for people who were at risk and robbed to get ration cards, met at the Wiggers farm, where, in addition to the Meijler family, the deposed mayor of Aalten, a medical student from The Hague and an English aviator had found shelter.

It all went wrong on April 20, 1944. After a traitor had infiltrated the resistance group, the German police raided this day. When the robbery approached, the people in hiding quickly disappeared to their hiding places. They were not found, but Hendrik Wiggers was taken. Via the S.D. office in Arnhem he was transferred to Camp Vught. He was held there until the Allies entered the south of our country in September (Mad Tuesday). The camp was hastily vacated and Wiggers was deported to Sachsenhausen, from where he was sent to work in Groß-Rosen (Poland) in November. This camp was also evacuated when the Russian army approached in February 1945. The prisoners were transported westward by train, a nine-day journey under harsh winter conditions. Shortly after arriving at the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, near Nordhausen (Germany), he fell ill from exhaustion and died on February 21, 1945, aged 58.

Aleida Wiggers continued to take care of the children and the people in hiding. All, including the Meijler Jewish family, survived the war.

On February 29, 2012, Hendrik and Aleida Wiggers were recognized by Israeli institute Yad Vashem and posthumously honored as "righteous among the peoples," "because they protected and saved Jewish fellow citizens at the risk of their own lives." On 11 October 2012, the accompanying certificate was presented to the next of kin in the reception area of the Aaltense Musea.

Tukaj se spominjamo

Je kamen tukaj poškodovan ali manjka? Sporočite nam po e-pošti