Veldstraat 89
Sint-Niklaas
Resistance woman Maria Rodrigus and her captive-born child Rita Dykers died in Ravensbrück concentration camp. A stumbling block for mother and daughter.
On July 14, 1919, Maria Louisa Rodrigus sees the light of day. She is the first child of Franciscus Rodrigus and Louisa De Coster. Father is a clog maker, mother works as a tobacco worker in one of the many factories in the city. The family lives in the working-class district of Tereken.
In 1921 they welcome another daughter, Alice, and in 1927 Maria's brother, Marcel, is born as a descendant. At the age of nineteen, Maria married Albert Dykers (1915-1995), a weaver from Sint-Niklaas. The young couple lives with Albert's parents in Veldstraat.
Maria will give birth to four daughters: Ernestina (°1939), Annie (°1941), Diana (°1943) and Rita (°1944). However, Rita is born in captivity and dies after one month from the hardships in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
During the German invasion in May 1940, Albert Dykers was a soldier in the Belgian army. Two days after the German invasion they take Albert, like so many Belgian soldiers, a prisoner of war. He is released after three months, but this experience will strengthen his anti-German feelings.
Albert Dykers comes into contact with the resistance through his work. After all, he has been a member of the Sint-Niklaas police force since 1941. Chief Commissioner at that time is Adolphe Cryns and he has close ties to the resistance. From his position, Cryns has a good idea of who can be trusted within the force and who cannot. Dykers takes on an active role from October 1943: he heads a division of the intelligence and action network Luc/Marc.
A secret transmitter is also hidden in Albert and Maria's house. The arrival of the transmitter and a radio operator dropped from London mark the beginning of the end of Albert's secret activities. During the transport of the defective transmitter to Ghent, one of Dykers' employees runs into the lamp. The Germans find the name and address of Albert and Maria in Sint-Niklaas in a matchbox. They are arrested in their home on March 24, 1944 by the Geheime Feldpolizei. A fake ID and a receipt for aid money for a member of the Secret Army in hiding make Albert even more suspicious. Albert and Maria end up in prison in Ghent. On August 31, 1944, Albert is transferred to Brussels to be deported to Germany. However, that transport is canceled because resistance fighters prevent the train from departing. In this way Albert manages to escape the misery of the concentration camps.
Maria is also active in the resistance. From October 1943 she joins the intelligence work, together with her husband. Former city archivist Piet Van Bouchaute summarized her activities as follows: “[…] In the absence of her husband, she receives messages from informants.
She also watches over possible incriminating documents hidden in their house: false identity papers, stolen reports, lists and other documents from the Kommandantur, the Arbeitsamt or the Werbestelle or copies thereof. She is partly responsible for the money that is hidden with them to cover the costs of the employees. Rodrigus puts her life in danger by hand grenades Mills and O.F. to be transported in a pram to engineer De Landsheer of the Mechelen-Terneuzen Railway Company. During the operations with the secret transmitter, she keeps watch: she has to keep an eye on the signals from police officers who monitor traffic in and around Veldstraat.”
The pregnant Maria is taken to the prison of Ghent by the Geheime Feldpolizei after her arrest. With the liberation in sight, many prisoners are deported to Germany. Via the Antwerp prison, her destination is the Ravensbrück concentration camp where she is registered on September 10, 1944 under number 68.275. There her fourth daughter, Rita, is born. The appalling conditions in which they have to live mean that little Rita will die after a month. A totally weakened Maria is still transferred to the camp in Rechlin, but there she would die in the course of February 1945.
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