Coevorden is one of the first places in Drenthe at the beginning of April 1945. Almost immediately the resistance begins, now renamed as domestic forces, the hunt for everyone who was possibly ‘wrong’ in the war.
“That concerned four types of NSB members,” explains Stadsgids Peter Geerdink. “Those were the Lüneburgers – Western NSB members who came back from Germany, then you had the land guards, than NSB people who came from here and NSKK people, that is Dutch people who worked for the Germans.”
In total, around six hundred NSB members were arrested. They were spread over different buildings. The men and the Lüneburgers ended up in the Antonius building, the parish house of the church. Just like the NSB men.
The women ended up in the Parkschool and the Paul Krugerschool. “What would happen to them afterwards was the question. The trial would happen in Assen, but they have been locked up so that they were banned from society for the time being.”
“The heavy cases were locked up in the Marechausseekazerne and the police station. Those are the cases that they were sure they were traitors.” According to Geerdink, the circumstances in the schools were not good. Especially in the Parkschool the women were treated very badly.
“A suspicion was enough to be locked up. Not all of them have been wrong,” Geerdink emphasizes. “If you read the stories, that has been poignant. There is even a story that were mistreated and raped by Polish soldiers in the Parkschool NSB women. They came here as a liberator and have misbehaved. That has been terrible for the women.”
Stadsgids Peter Geerdink believes it is important that this story is also told. “Those people also have the right to get a place in society again when they are punished. You also have to accept people again as ordinary citizens. That took a while and they got that chance here in society.”