Kamp Sint-Michielsgestel

Kamp Sint-Michielsgestel was an ilag that was set up by the German occupiers during World War II in the Ruwenberg boarding school and the Beekvliet minor seminary in Sint-Michielsgestel.

History

Notable hostages

On 4 May 1942, Kamp Sint-Michielsgestel, located in the Beekvliet minor seminary in Sint-Michielsgestel, was opened. The first inhabitants were 460 prominent Dutch individuals arrested that day, including politicians, mayors, professors, clergy, lawyers, writers, and musicians. Until the end of 1944, hundreds of notable Dutch citizens were held hostage. The Nazis believed that by holding these people as hostages, they could control the Dutch resistance and stated that they would be executed in the event of unrest in the country.

Indische hostages

In May 1942, the Indische hostages were also transferred to Kamp Sint-Michielsgestel. Most of the Indische hostages were Dutch people on leave from the Dutch East Indies and were taken hostage in July 1940 as retaliation for the imprisonment of Germans in the Dutch East Indies. The men were initially interned in Kamp Schoorl, Buchenwald concentration camp and Kamp Haaren, and finally ended up in Kamp Sint-Michielsgestel. On 7 October 1940, an additional 116 men were added to this group in Buchenwald, although they were not from the Dutch East Indies and mostly held prominent positions.

In early 1943, the Indische hostages were transferred to Ruwenberg, one and a half kilometers from Beekvliet, but still part of Kamp Sint-Michielsgestel. The hostages had relatively more freedom there.

Executions

On 15 August 1942, five notable hostages were killed as reprisal for a failed bombing in Rotterdam on a train of the German army. They were Willem Ruys, Robert Baelde, Otto Ernst Gelder, Christoffel Bennekers, and Alexander Schimmelpenninck van der Oye. A second execution of fifteen notable hostages took place in October 1942, again in retaliation for acts of resistance.

Activities

Intellectual activities

The notable hostages, many of whom were intellectuals, organised seminars for each other on subjects such as history, philosophy, drawing, and economics. Because of these activities, some hostages nicknamed it the ''People's university''.

Political activities

Dutch society before World War II was highly pillarised, which meant that Protestants, Catholics, liberals and socialists had separate social institutions and organisations and thus rarely came into contact with each other. But because the Germans had taken notables hostage from all these social groups, their notables came into contact in Kamp Sint-Michielsgestel. This created a solidarity among them that was later called the "Ghost of Gestel" ().

Heeren Zeventien

Seventeen men led by Wim Schermerhorn formed the ' (Gentlemen Seventeen), named after the leadership of the Dutch East India Company. It included Day von Balluseck, Willem Banning, Ton Barge, Louis Einthoven, Pieter Geijl, Marinus van der Goes van Naters, Dolf Joekes, Max Kohnstamm, Hendrik Kraemer, Piet Lieftinck, Nicolaas Okma, Jan de Quay, Maan Sassen, Teun Struycken and Frans Wijffels. This group discussed the future of the Netherlands after the war.

Legacy

One of the legacies of the political activities was the founding of the Nederlandse Volksbeweging and later the Labour Party (PvdA). The hostages had however underestimated the firmness of the pillars and the anticipated breakthrough failed to materialize.

Prisoners

References

Further reading

*
* {{Cite book, title=De gijzelaars van Sint Michielsgestel: een elite-beraad in oorlogstijd, isbn=9021824914, language=nl, date=1979, first=Madelon, last=De Keizer, publisher=A.W. Sijthof

Internment camps in the Netherlands
Sint-Michielsgestel