The fallen resistance people in Limburg

Sjeng Tholen
(Johannes Mathijs Lambert)

Oorlogsgravenstichting

Sjeng Tholen was born and lived in Urmond. [1]
At the age of 16, he attended the OVS (Underground Vocational School) to learn the profession of a miner. Two years later he started working at the Staatsmijn Maurits (in Geleen).
Sjeng was a serious boy who consciously worked on his future, and after becoming a hewer, he attended the mining school in the fall of 1943, where he received training as a pit foreman (Steiger) in the evenings. There he came into contact with the resistance through one of his teachers. He distributed sabotage calls and illegal newspapers until he was betrayed by an NSB member from the area. … While working, he was taken up by the mining police and handed over to the security police in Maastricht. [2]
He was imprisoned successively in Maastricht, Vught, and Sachsenhausen. On February 16, 1945, he arrived at Mauthausen (Austria) with a transport that had been on the way for three days, where he succumbed a month before liberation. [2]

Cammaert wrote: Johannes Matheus Lambertus Tholen, a miner from Geleen, distributed anti-German leaflets from Heerlen which called for mine sabotage and also showed how this could best be done. Since one copy fell into the wrong hands, the SiPo was able to arrest him on June 23, 1944. Tholen died in Mauthausen on April 5. [1]
He has a grave of honor at the Roman Catholic cemetery in Urmond. [4]
At the Dutch memorial in Mauthausen there are bronze plaques with the names of 1,658 Dutch victims, including that of Sjeng Tholen. [5]
Johannes Mathijs Lambert ( Sjeng ) Tholen is listed in the Erelijst 1940-1945 (Honor Roll of the Dutch Parliament). [6]

Footnotes

1. Archief Oorlogsgravenstichting (@ Nationaal archief), Dossier Johannes Mathijs Lambert Tholen#2
2. kleinemonumentenstein.nl Stolperstein Sjeng Tholen
   Grote Straat 29, Urmond
3. Dr. F. Cammaert, Het Verborgen Front – Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Doctorale scriptie 1994, Groningen
   11. Illegale pers p.1097
4. oorlogsgravenstichting.nl R.K. Begraafplaats, Urmond
5. 4en5mei.nl Nederlands monument, Mauthausen
6. Erelijst 1940-1945
7. Oorlogsgravenstichting.nl