The fallen resistance people in Limburg

Arie van Mansum
(Arie Hendrikus)

collections.ushmm.org …

The traveling salesman Arie van Mansum was a member of the orthodox reformed parish in Maastricht, which was remarkably principled and unyielding. His closest friends and acquaintances included resistance pioneers such as Jacques Vrij and Derk van Assen. They all had a reformed background and saw it as their Christian duty to help the Jews in these difficult times. Even before the war, two committees were founded in Maastricht with this aim. One of them had its origins in Protestant-Christian circles. Arie van Mansum took part on behalf of the orthodox reformed parish. [1.1]
Van Mansum worked as a representative for a Rotterdam chemical company in 1941 and from 1943 for an importer of office machines in The Hague. This allowed him to travel freely. He was a member of the small and close-knit orthodox reformed parish in Maastricht, which maintained close ties with the reformed parishes in the mining region and in central and northern Limburg. Van Mansum began to help in 1941 when he brought a Jewish family to Apeldoorn at the request of his brother in faith, D. van Assen. Due to his profession, bailiff Van Assen had a lot of contact with Jewish businessmen in Maastricht. [1.2]
This way, Arie van Mansum became a specialist and point of contact when it was about helping Jews. Thanks to the help, a network of connections developed around Van Mansum in the course of 1942. Among others, he came into contact with J.S.H. Lokerman and J. Lamberts, who passed Jews on to him and ho in turn introduced him to S.D.A.P. members and individuals from socialist trade unions in the mining region, Sittard, Roermond and Venlo. [1.2]
The social democrat Jo Lokerman also had a Reformed background.

Since August 1940, the organist of the Reformed Church in Heerlen, Sjef Janssen, multiplied the resistance magazine “Vrij Nederland” with his spirit duplicator in a number of several hundred copies. In addition to members of the Smit group, Janssen engaged his Maastricht acquaintance A.H. van Mansum in the distribution in late 1940. [1.3][2]
From early 1943, Van Mansum regularly took packages with V.N. to Limburg when he collected Jewish children in Amsterdam. [1.3]
Cammaert wrote about him in a summary: Maastricht, commercial traveler. Resistance pioneer. Began at an early stage helping Jewish people in hiding. Served as chief agent for the distribution of “Vrij Nederland” in Limburg. In 1943 he was asked to organize the L.O. in Limburg. Little came of this, as he had to deal with the consequences of the infiltration of the Bongaerts group . In the fall of 1943 he was arrested in Heerlen. [1.4]
Via Maastricht and the Oranje-Hotel in Scheveningen, he ended up in Haaren, where he spent six months in solitary confinement. [3]
Between March 15, 1944 and June 21, 1944, he was imprisoned in Camp Amersfoort. [4]

He then had to appear before the court-martial in Utrecht. In May 1945 he was liberated by the Canadian army and returned to Maastricht. After his arrival, Arie worked to reunite the families he had helped hide before his arrest. He also helped the local police locate and interrogate war criminals. In 1946, Arie appeared as a witness at a war crimes trial.
In 1952, Arie married Doris Van Diggele. Wanting to start a new life outside Europe, they emigrated to Ottawa, Canada in 1958. [3]
On January 2, 1969, Yad Vashem recognized Arie van Mansum as Righteous Among the Nations. [3]

Footnotes

1. Cammaert, A. P. M.. Het verborgen front: Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog, Groningen 1994.
   1. Hoofdst. 5, Hulpverlening aan joden, p.374
   2. ibidem, Zuid-Limburg p.403 ff,
   3. Hoofdst. 11, Illegale pers, $II.1.1. Vrij Nederland: Limburg. p.1041 ff
   4. Hoofdst. 0, pp.18ff: Introductie van vaak genoemde personen
2. Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society Chapter 4: The Organizations, p.91: 4.3.5. The Vrij group
3. jewishottawa.com Arie van Mansum
4. oorlogsbronnen.nl Arie Hendrikus van Mansum<
5. https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa21331