Hendrik Drost
* Jan 6 1921, Dedemsvaart
† March 8 1945, Woeste Hoeve
Henk
Drost never married. From 1943 he was active in the Dutch resistance movement
against the German occupation. His official job was at the communication
department for agriculture, but by night he busied himself with cutting through
telephone wires and blowing up railways, with the aim of breaking the German
occupation. Those resistance fighters were called "terrorists" by the
Germans.
On december 2 1944 he got arrested by the SD (Sicherheits Dienst). A few days later he wrote a letter to his parents from the prison of Schalkhaar, and succeeded in smuggling it out. There were long inquieries, nevertheless he felt quiet. The food was good. But he also wrote: "Maybe I won't see you back on earth". Maybe he had to appear to a fire-peloton. On February 27 he wrote another letter, and this one had a less somber tone. There was a chance he could get out alive.
In the
night from march 6 to 7 a unit of the resistance movement committed an
assassination on
the highest commander of the SS in Holland by that time, an Austrian called
Hanns Rauter. His car was riddled with hundreds of bullets. Rauter survived the assassination. As a repisal, from the prisons
around Apeldoorn, 117 prisoners were brought up to De Woeste Hoeve, and
shot down in the morning of march 8. Click
for more information-in Dutch and here.
By means of a newspaper advertisement, may 3 1945, the family announced that in a mass-grave at Ugchelen, Henk's body was identified. At Achterveld (Dedemsvaart) he was reburied. "We believe that now he is a citizen of a Country, where there will be no war, but forever peace.. fam. S.Drost"
The tragedy of De Woeste Hoeve has been a severe affliction for the Drost family.
But they found power in a positive Christian attitude. There was no hatred
against the German people as a whole. During the war, Grandpa Drost fed the
hungry and gave the homeless a place to sleep. After the war, he opened his home
for orphants of died German soldiers. Because he had the conviction that one may
not judge the children by the deeds of the parents. That was Henk's conviction
too.
Happily
after all justice has been done. In 1949 Rauter was sentenced as a war criminal,
and according to that, executed by law. On May 4 1960, a List of Honor, with the
names of about 18.000 deceased patriots during WWII was presented to the
chairmen of the 1st and 2nd Chambers of the parliament, by the queen Juliana.
www.erelijst.nl. Henk's
name is to be found on the page below.
For a
discussion about the honor names and historical evidence go to the Dutch
page on this site