Arie Veerman

Den Haag 28 Oct 1898 – Utrecht 16 Jun 1958

Arie Veerman (his birth; his death)

About: The elder of the two brothers of Jacob Veerman, who hid Murphy and Hardy at Klein Achterveld for a month in 1944: a bookkeeper and then an accountant at Utrecht, where he died in 1958. No source puts him at the farm; Murphy's revolver came, by his notes, from "Mr Veermans Brother, who was in the Dutch Police", which could point to Arie or to Leen, and ◐ it was probably Leen's (With Murphy).

Unit or role: Bookkeeper (boekhouder), 1923–1924 (the records; his Utrecht card); ✓ accountant, 1933 (the deed); a founder (the deed), and at his death the secretary-treasurer (the notice), of a Protestant-Christian cooperative burial society at Utrecht.

Where: Den Haag; Lunteren (Ede), 1911–1918; Barneveld; Utrecht from 1923, Leidseweg 114 in 1958, where he died.

Evidence: ✓ civil records; ✓ his birth, his Ede population card and his Utrecht family card; ✓ his death and his death notices, Trouw, 18 and 19 June 1958; ◐ a compiled genealogy's entry for Jacob, which lists Arie and Leendert Jan as his brothers and gives no sources.

He was born in Den Haag on 28 October 1898, the son of Leendert Veerman, then a shopkeeper, and Johanna Maria Kok (his birth). The family left Den Haag for Barneveld in September 1910 (war graves file of his brother Jacob, scan 2), and Ede's population card has him, Gereformeerd, coming from Barneveld to Lunteren on 8 March 1911 and going back to Barneveld on 4 December 1918 (the card). His father's father was Jacob Veerman, a merchant (koopman) at Nieuwkoop in 1868 (the record), ◐ very probably the cheese merchant of Bodegraven whose will of 6 March 1900 names his sons Jan, Leendert and Jacobus Johannes (the will's index entry; the family link is set out on Jacob's page); the Leendert of the will fits Arie's father, but no record held says so. His brothers were Jacob and Leendert Jan; his sisters Johanna Catharina, who married Hendrikus Koudijs at Barneveld in 1920, and Jansje Maria, who married Gerrit Jan Broekhuis (the records); a genealogy site gives a third sister, Dirkje Clasina (BROBOL), and Leendert Jan's death notice of 1975 is signed by "D. C. Bosman-Veerman" of Zwolle (Trouw).

He married Jannetje Koetsveld, 26, of Barneveld, at Barneveld on 1 February 1924; he was 25 and a bookkeeper (boekhouder). The register notes that the marriage ended in divorce (the records).

✓ He had already moved to Utrecht. The city's family card has him registering from Barneveld on 28 March 1923 at Floris Heermalestraat 14bis, a bookkeeper; from 6 February 1924, after the wedding, at J.P. Coenstraat 121, where his wife joined him the next day; and from 13 June 1927 at van Beuningenplein 6. They had two daughters, born at Utrecht in 1926 and 1931. The card, in a series that runs to 1936, has no entry after 13 June 1927 (the card, read on the scan).

✓ The burial cooperative, 1933. A notarial deed of 2 January 1933 at Utrecht (notary A. M. Brouwer), published in the register of cooperative societies on 8 February 1933, has the lawyer Mr W. A. Vrolijk acting as proxy for "1. Arie Veerman, accountant; 2. Jan Steenge, Rijksambtenaar; 3. Johannes Karel van Daalhuizen, assuradeur, allen wonende te Utrecht", in founding a Protestant-Christian cooperative to provide burials at cost, and names Arie Veerman to its first board (the deed; the founders' lines read from the page image). The deed gives no age, address or parents, but his death notices settle that it is him: when Arie Veerman died at Utrecht on 16 June 1958, the board of the "Prot. Chr. Coöp. Begrafenisvereniging" mourned "onze secr.-penningm., de Heer A. Veerman" (our secretary-treasurer, Mr A. Veerman), over the name of its chairman, "J. STEENGE" (Trouw, 19 June 1958). Nothing in either touches the war.

No source puts him at the farm while Murphy and Hardy were there, from about 25 November to 23 December 1944 (Hardy; Jacob Veerman). His part, if he had one, is the revolver. Who gave it to Murphy is told three ways (Jacob Veerman):

• ◐ Hardy, in his MI9 report of 13 January 1945: "MURPHY's given him by Jacob VEERMAN" (Hardy).
• ⚠︎ Murphy, in two passages of his notes of about 1998: a policeman in the family, who gave him his own revolver as they left. He has "Jo Veermans uncle" give him "a revolver, one of the Dutch Police revolvers, which belonged to him" (p.6; the typed copy), and names him "Mr Veermans Brother, who was in the Dutch Police" (his page about Tex Banwell).
• A son of Jacob's, who is living and was about eleven at the time, told Jacques Vanhaelen in October 2026 that he and his father fetched it from Jacob's brother Leen (Leendert Jan), a bicycle repairer who kept a number of pistols in a tool cabinet; Jacob hid it on the boy, and when Germans stopped them on the way back and searched Jacob, it was not found. It is his own memory as the boy who carried it; Jacques wrote that he "still remembers very clearly" the pistols in Leen's tool cabinet (Jacques Vanhaelen's email, 18 October 2026).

Only Murphy's account could point to Arie. His trades on record are bookkeeper (1923–24) and accountant (1933, by the deed above, and to his death by Carel Plantagie's account); neither is police work, though no record gives his work in 1944 (the records; his Utrecht card). Hardy separately mentions an unnamed Dutch policeman in that network (Hardy), and Jacob's grandson Carel Plantagie knows of no policeman in the family (his email, October 2026).

◐ The revolver was probably Leen's (Jacob Veerman).

⚠︎ By an RTV Utrecht report of 2024, a brother of Jacob's and a nephew were also held at Neuengamme and had to work there; Jacob is the only Veerman on the online Neuengamme memorial, which lists the dead (RTV Utrecht; Jacob's brothers in the camps). ⚠︎ Which brother is not known. Murphy wrote that "the Germans rounded up the Uncle and others"; no Veerman was taken in the December round-up of 1944 (José Huurdeman's local history, via the Oorlogsgravenstichting), and nothing found ties any arrest to the revolver (Jacob's brothers in the camps). The Arie Veerman in the Arolsen index, prisoner 1069 at Amersfoort, was born on 23 December 1918, so he is another man (Arolsen search); Oorlogsbronnen has no war record for an Arie Veerman born in 1898 (the search).

✓ He died at Utrecht on 16 June 1958, aged 59: the death register names his parents, Leendert Veerman and Johanna Maria Kok, and his partner, Pieternella Maria Wijburg, and notes that he had earlier been divorced from Jannetje Koetsveld (the register, via Open Archieven).

✓ Five death notices in Trouw mark it. His wife's, "Heden nam de Here geheel onverwacht van mij weg mijn lieve Man" (today the Lord took from me, quite unexpectedly, my dear husband), is signed "P. M. VEERMAN— Weijburg" at Leidseweg 114, Utrecht; ◐ the Weijburgs, very probably her parents (the notice is signed "M. WEIJBURG" and "A. P. W. WEIJBURG— Nieuwkerk"), mourned "onze lieve Schoonzoon" (our dear son-in-law); and "De Familie" set the funeral for Thursday 19 June 1958 at 4 in the afternoon at the cemetery "Den en Rust", Soestdijkerweg, Bilthoven (Trouw, 18 June 1958). The next day his family at Barneveld, "Uit aller naam: H. KOUDIJS", ◐ his sister Johanna Catharina's husband, mourned "onze beste Broer, Zwager en Oom" (our dear brother, brother-in-law and uncle), and the burial cooperative its secretary-treasurer (above) (Trouw, 19 June 1958). The notices spell her name Weijburg, the register Wijburg.

⚠︎ By the account of Carel Plantagie, Jacob Veerman's grandson, the divorce was on 27 May 1953 and he married Pieternella Maria Wijburg (1913–2001) at Utrecht on 18 December 1953, and he worked as an accountant until he died; Dutch marriages of 1953 are not yet open, so the dates cannot be checked online. ✓ That they were married by 1958 the notices bear out: she signed as P. M. Veerman-Weijburg and called him her husband (Trouw, 18 June 1958).

⚠︎ The name index of the Centraal Archief van de Bijzondere Rechtspleging (CABR, the post-war investigations of suspected collaboration) has an entry "Arie Veerman is onderzocht" (Arie Veerman was investigated), born at 's-Gravenhage on 28 October 1898, the date and place of his birth above, living, by the index, at Oudenrijn (every other record from 1923 on has him at Utrecht), deceased, with his dossier 1480 at inventory numbers 97067 and 97923 (the index entry; the inventory entries 97067 and 97923, which list dossier numbers only). One dossier, split across the two numbers: by the index, 97067 is scanned, in the digital CABR, which can be read at the Nationaal Archief and some other places, and 97923 is on paper at the Nationaal Archief; both inventory entries carry "Openbaarheid beperkt tot 01-01-2027" (public access restricted until 1 January 2027). The index does not say why he was investigated or how it ended, and neither part has been read. A CABR file is not itself a finding of guilt.

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