Mr van der Elst

"Mr. van der Elst, Cliostraat in Amsterdam", in Joop Migchelsen's statement of 14 June (◐ 1945: the sheet gives no year), in his American file (his file, p. 3)

About: By Joop Migchelsen's account, Mr van der Elst of the Cliostraat in Amsterdam put half of a double house at Hierderweg 132, Hulshorst, at Migchelsen's disposal for his underground work, and in that house Murphy and five other Allied men were hidden in 1944. No other source names him, and who he was is not known.

Where: Cliostraat, Amsterdam (Migchelsen's file, p. 3).

Evidence: ⚠︎ Migchelsen's statement, p. 3, the only source to name him.

Migchelsen, whose group kept the men, described the house:

Hierderweg 132 Hulshorst Post Elspeet: a double house; in one half a forester's family was living named v.d. Vlist, the other half was put at my disposal by Mr. van der Elst, Cliostraat in Amsterdam to enable me to carry out my underground work. In this house the pilots we[re] sheltered.

— Joop Migchelsen, statement of 14 June, year not given (his file, p. 3)

• The men in the house. Migchelsen's item 3 lists six men, James Branford, James Hardy, Bernard Haller, Samuel Walsh, Murphy ("MURPHY, Thomas - 91 Centre street Kelty Fifeshire - Scotland") and Banwell; his item 4 has Branford arriving on "18th Sept. 1944" and "the others about 1st October 1944", and his item 7 has all six "Delivered 'en bloc' on 11th Nov. 1944" to the farmer Bos at Staverden (his file, p. 3). See James Branford, James Hardy, Bernard Haller, Sam Walsh and Tex Banwell.
• Murphy's dates there. Hardy's report has Hardy, Murphy and "the other Paratrooper" setting off for "BRUMMAGER's house in LEUVENUM" after dark on 26 October 1944 (◐ taking that to be Migchelsen's house), Banwell joining them there on 29 October, and the six taken to Harskamp "At midnight on 6 Nov" (Hardy), five days before Migchelsen's 11 November.
  • ◐ Hardy gives no address for it, but he places an earlier house in the woods, where "BRUMMAGER also stayed", at "approx. position (HOLLAND, 1;100,000, Sheet 2, 610145)", and calls Brummager's house in Leuvenum one "where I had been before"; that the two are one house is our reading. The grid reference is the one fixed point for testing a match with Hierderweg 132, and is not tested here.
• The other half. The forester's family was Zegert van der Vlist's: he wrote to the Americans from "Hierderweg 132" in 1946 (his letter, p. 14), and his questionnaire, dated 5 December 1945, lists the same six men, hidden "6 or 7 weeks" (p. 3).
• ◐ Kijkuit. That the double house is the forester's house Kijkuit in the Leuvenumse Bos, where Noordman has the men in the care of Migchelsen's group, is our reading: Migchelsen does not name Kijkuit, and Noordman does not give the address (Noordman, pp. 278, 292, 302–303). The rest of the stay is on Kijkuit and Harskamp.

Migchelsen does not say whether Mr van der Elst owned the house or rented it, whether he knew what it was used for, or whether he was ever there.

⚠︎ A lead, not an identification. A death notice of 31 July 1956 gives "JAN WILLEM VAN DER ELST in de leeftijd van 53 jaar", "Amsterdam-Zuid, 30 juli 1956. Cliostraat 6.", among those giving notice "E. P. M. van der Elst-Verhoeff" (De Telegraaf, 31 July 1956, read on the image). The notice does not say how she is related to him; ◐ that she is his mother is our reading from the 1903 birth below. ◐ He is very probably the Jan Willem van der Elst born at Zaltbommel on 1 February 1903, son of Willem Jacob van der Elst and Elisa Maria Petronella Verhoeff (the birth, index only), on the mother's name and an age that fits (born 1 February 1903, he was 53 on 30 July 1956; the notice also lists him as a son, so a parent was still living).

That he is Migchelsen's Mr van der Elst rests only on the surname and the street, twelve years apart: the notice says nothing of the war or of Hulshorst, and no record found puts him in the Cliostraat in 1944. Delpher's newspapers have no other "van der Elst" with the Cliostraat (a search of the OCR text, 28 October 2026: three hits, all this notice, so a misread name would be missed). ◐ Van der Vlist's questionnaire puts the house in the "Leusenhorst" woods, which by our reading, stated by no source, are the Leuvenhorst estate near Hulshorst (Z. van der Vlist); two of the partners in that estate named in 1931 ("eenige deelgenooten", some of the partners) are mevrouw A. 's Jacob, weduwe van den heer S. J. R. de Monchy (Mrs A. 's Jacob, widow of S. J. R. de Monchy) and ir. A. R. Jurriaanse; the article does not list the rest, so it cannot rule a Van der Elst in or out (Het Volk, 24 September 1931). The same article puts Leuvenhorst next to the Leuvenumse Bos ("In het Westen grenst zij aan het bekende Leuvenumsche bosch"), where Noordman puts Kijkuit, so the Leuvenhorst partners bear on the Kijkuit reading only if the house stood on the estate and not in the wood beside it. Migchelsen also writes of "my house, which I had hired temporarily from Mr. de Monchy" (p. 4, item 15); which house that is, no source says. ◐ The chain is our reading at every link (Migchelsen's house is Kijkuit; Van der Vlist's "Leusenhorst" is Leuvenhorst; the Leuvenhorst partners tell us something about Van der Elst), and no source states any of the three.

• Whose house it was. Lent to Migchelsen, for the men's half, by Mr van der Elst of Amsterdam, in Migchelsen's statement (his file, p. 3); "een boswachterswoning van de heer Jurriaanse" (a forester's house of Mr Jurriaanse), in Liesbeth Verweij's account as Noordman prints it (Noordman, p. 303; Mr Jurriaanse); "BRUMMAGER's house", ◐ Bram Baar's, in Hardy's report (Hardy; Bram Baar). ◐ These can all be true at once: an owner, a man who lent his half, and the man who kept the evaders there; no source says which, if any, owned it.
• When the men arrived. "The others about 1st October 1944" in Migchelsen's item 4, which also has Hardy and Haller escaping on 6 October (his file, p. 3); in Hardy's report he set off on his own on 19 October, met Murphy that evening at a house at Elspeet, and the party moved to "BRUMMAGER's house in LEUVENUM" on 26 October (Hardy).
• When the men left. Midnight on 6 November in Hardy's report, "11th Nov. 1944" in Migchelsen's statement (Hardy; his file, p. 3).

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