Bab van Garderen

About: A gamekeeper on the Moorsterweg at Leusden, neighbour of the farm Hardeveld, the second billet of Gilbert Kirschen's Belgian SAS team. On 5 January 1945, in the last raid Huurdeman lists in the round-up that followed the team's billets, the SD came to his house; he was in hiding, and they took his wife and an evacuee (Huurdeman).

Unit or role: Gamekeeper (jachtopziener); the Hardeveld farmhands took their working instructions from him (Huurdeman).

Where: The Moorsterweg, Leusden, a neighbour of Hardeveld (Postweg 8) (Huurdeman).

Evidence: ◐ One source: José Huurdeman's Ondergronds in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Historische Kring Leusden, 2019), as printed on the Oorlogsgravenstichting's page on the arrests (the page) and on the Digitaal Monument Neuengamme's pages for the men taken, the same text word for word (Gerrit Kamphorst's; Hendrik van de Kuilen's; Piet Veenendaal's). No mention of him was found in the transcribed pages or the OCR of the War Graves Foundation's files on the two farmhands.

Huurdeman gives his house as on the Moorsterweg and calls him the neighbouring gamekeeper ("buurman jachtopziener") from whom the farmhands of Hardeveld took their working instructions ("werkinstructies"), which is the reason he gives for the SD going to his house after Hardeveld (Huurdeman). No source found gives his first name in full, his dates, or his own part in the resistance beyond that.

No source puts him with Murphy. The raid on his house was the last of a round-up that, in Huurdeman's account, began with the SD learning of the SAS team's billets after the arrest of the RVV leader Jan Thijssen: Piet Veenendaal's farm at Scherpenzeel on 15 December 1944, the Verhoef farm on the Klettersteeg at Achterveld on the 19th, Hardeveld on 31 December, and his house on 5 January 1945 (Huurdeman). Murphy was hidden at the Veerman farm at Klein Achterveld (Jacob Veerman) until 23 December 1944, by James Hardy's report (Hardy), so the raid on the gamekeeper's house came after Murphy had left Achterveld. Each raid is told on Piet Veenendaal's page.

Because the farmhands of the farm Hardeveld took their work instructions from the neighbour, the gamekeeper Bab van Garderen (on the Moorsterweg), the next raid took place there on 5 January 1945. They did not find Bab van Garderen, he too was in hiding. They arrested his wife and Gerrit Jansen, an evacuee from Wageningen. The Van Garderen children were left behind in despair. The women were released after 7 weeks, but the men all died at Neuengamme or in one of its subcamps.

Dutch originalOmdat de knechten van boerderij Hardeveld werkinstructies kregen van buurman jachtopziener Bab van Garderen (aan de Moorsterweg) vond op 5 januari 1945 daar de volgende overval plaats. Bab van Garderen troffen ze niet aan, ook hij zat ondergedoken. Ze arresteerden zijn vrouw en Gerrit Jansen , een evacué uit Wageningen. De kinderen Van Garderen bleven in wanhoop achter. De vrouwen kwamen na 7 weken vrij, maar de mannen zijn allen omgekomen in Neuengamme of in een van de buitenkampen.

— José Huurdeman · Ondergronds in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (2019), via the Oorlogsgravenstichting · the text

His wife is not named. Huurdeman says "De vrouwen kwamen na 7 weken vrij" (the women were released after seven weeks) in that passage (Huurdeman); ◐ she is very probably among them, though he does not say so, and four women were arrested in the whole round-up (the page on Verhoef).

The evacuee taken with her: "Gerrit Jansen, evacué uit Wageningen bij jachtopziener Bab van Garderen, overleden 25 februari 1945 in Wöbbelin, 36 jaar" (Gerrit Jansen, evacuee from Wageningen at the gamekeeper Bab van Garderen's, died 25 February 1945 at Wöbbelin, aged 36), in Huurdeman's list of the dead of the round-up (Huurdeman). ◐ The Digitaal Monument Neuengamme has a Jansen who died at Wöbbelin that day, Gerrit Gijsbertus Jansen, born at Wageningen on 24 June 1918, held at Amersfoort from 24 January to 2 February 1945 and at Neuengamme from 4 February, recorded as having dysentery at Wöbbelin until 25 February (found by searching the memorial for "Jansen"; a Janssen, or a record without that date, was not looked for); the dates match Kamphorst's own record there, and it attaches Huurdeman's account of the round-up to his record (the memorial). That makes him 26, not 36 (below).

The round-up as a whole. By the text on Jan Verhoef's page of the Oorlogsgravenstichting, headed "Verhaal door José Huurdeman" and giving his book as its source, eleven men and four women were arrested in it and taken for questioning to the Willem III barracks at Apeldoorn (the page). The two Hardeveld farmhands died in the camps: Hendrik van de Kuilen at Neuengamme on 18 February 1945, and Gerrit Kamphorst at Wöbbelin on 12 March 1945, by the same list (Huurdeman).

The gamekeeper himself. Nothing found says what became of him after 5 January 1945.

• No certificate under his name was found in an OCR search of the British index of Dutch helpers, WO 208/5476–5477; an OCR search is not proof he is absent (the index notes).

• How long the women were held. Seven weeks in Huurdeman's account of the arrests; six weeks ("De vrouwen kwamen na 6 weken vrij") in the text on Jan Verhoef's page, which gives Huurdeman's book as its source (Huurdeman; Huurdeman, on Verhoef's page). ◐ Both rest on Huurdeman; neither names the women or gives release dates.
• The evacuee's age. 36 in Huurdeman's list; born 24 June 1918, so 26 at his death on 25 February 1945, on the Neuengamme memorial's record of Gerrit Gijsbertus Jansen (Huurdeman; the memorial). ◐ The memorial's record gives a birth date; Huurdeman's figure may be a slip, or the memorial's tie of her text to this man may be wrong. Not settled.
• The date of the raid. 5 January 1945 for his house in Huurdeman, who puts the farmhands' arrest at Hardeveld on 31 December 1944. Three other records have 5 January 1945 for the farmhands:
  • The State Police report of 1957 on Van de Kuilen has him and "zijn collega Kamphorst" and a maid arrested by Germans "Op 5 januari 1945" at the farm of "W. Lagerweij, wonende te Leusden G.35" (◐ very probably Hardeveld, Open questions, item 25) (the report).
  • The Neuengamme memorial's record of Kamphorst has "Gearresteerd op 05-01-1945" (Digitaal Monument Neuengamme).
  • Kamphorst's father's form of 1958 gives 5 January 1945 as the day his son left for Germany, first to Apeldoorn (the form).
  • ⚠︎ Whether the SD raided Hardeveld and his house on the same day, or one of the dates is wrong, is not settled.

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