Jos van Hövell

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Memorial plaque in the auditorium of the University of Nijmegen with the name of Jos van Hövell

Jozef "Jos" Felix Henri Marie Baron van Hövell van Wezeveld en Westerflier (born January 12, 1919 in Maastricht ; † January 3, 1945 in Neuengamme concentration camp ) was a Dutch resister against the German occupation during the Second World War . He was one of the leaders of the student resistance in Nijmegen and across the country.

biography

Jos van Hövell came from a Catholic noble family. His father was Eduard Otto Joseph Maria van Hövell dead Westerflier , who was governor of Limburg from 1918 to 1936. His mother was Marie Cornélie Aimée Baroness Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, who also came from an old noble family. Jos was the sixth of ten children from their marriage. He spent the first 16 years of his life in the governorate , the seat of the governor (today a building of the Maastricht University ). In 1936 his father died and the family moved into the Huis de Torentjes . Due to the difficult family situation after the father's death, van Hövell had to repeat a class at school.

After finishing school, van Hövell did his military service in the Dutch Air Force . On May 4, 1940, he was an eyewitness to the bombing of Rotterdam by the Germans, which killed over 800 people and led to the country's surrender . This ended his military service and he took up law studies at the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen , which his father had co-founded.

In 1942 he became president of the Carolus Magnus student association , which was banned by the German occupation forces, also because the students refused to put up a sign saying “Forbidden for Jews”. Contemporary witnesses later described the tall young man as "level-headed" and "mature", with great charisma and natural authority. His sister Aimée described that van Hövell put no emphasis on his name and his many first names and therefore wanted to be called just "Jos". To show that he didn't feel like something better, he often wore wooden shoes , which is why he was promptly called baron op klompen .

On March 13, 1943, the German authorities asked all Dutch students to sign a declaration of loyalty to the occupying power by April 4. In the event of refusal, the students concerned were threatened with de-registration and possibly sent to a concentration camp for work in Germany. The resistance work of van Hövell and his fellow students resulted in only 0.1 percent of the students in Nijmegen signing this declaration. As a result, the university was closed by the Germans and van Höevell went underground.

Van Hövell took part in meetings of the Raad van Negen , which coordinated student resistance from nine Dutch universities. He also took part in the distribution of the Protestant underground newspaper Trouw and was one of the founding members of the Nationaal Comité van het Verzet . One of his friends was Toon Fredericks, who was executed by the Germans on May 3, 1943.

On the night of March 27-28, 1944, Jos van Hövell was arrested together with his friend Frans van Fisenne in The Hague , initially held in the Oranjehotel and after three months brought to the Herzogenbusch concentration camp ( Kamp Vught ). In September 1944 he was deported via Sachsenhausen to the Neuengamme concentration camp , where he had to do heavy forced labor. He died of exhaustion on January 3, 1945 at the age of 25.

Honors

On May 9, 1946, Jos van Hövell was posthumously awarded the Verzetskruis . His name is listed on a plaque commemorating the dead in the Second World War in the auditorium of the University of Nijmegen, and his name is also found on a plaque at his former school in Maastricht, the former Veldeke College .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d 4 & 5 mei comite Nijmegen: Oorlogsdoden Nijmegen 1940–1945 - JHFM baron van Hövell van Wezeveld en Westerflier. In: oorlogsdodennijmegen.nl. Retrieved August 8, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Mathijs Noij: Van baron op klompen tot gevallen verzetsstrijder: het leven van student Jozef van Hövell. In: Vox magazine. May 3, 2018, accessed May 4, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Today (2018) the castle-like building is the residence of the musician André Rieu .
  4. ↑ Jos van Hövell's sister, Aimée, was interviewed in 2018 at the age of 101.
  5. ↑ Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität: Dutch forced laborers - March 1942 to summer 1944 - service obligations, company combing and annual class campaigns. In: uni-muenster.de. September 26, 2012, accessed August 8, 2017 .
  6. ↑ a b OORLOGSMONUMENTS in Maastricht. In: maastrichtsegevelstenen.nl. September 14, 1944, accessed on August 8, 2017 (German).
  7. ↑ World War 2 Awards.com - HÖVELL VAN WEZEVELD EN WESTERFLIER, Jozef FHMB In: nl.ww2awards.com. Retrieved August 8, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Hövell, Jos van
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baron van Hövell van Wezeveld en Westerflier, Jozef Felix Henri Marie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch resistance fighter and rowers
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Maastricht
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1945
Place of death Neuengamme concentration camp