“I’m not going to say anything. I can repeat it five hundred times, but it won’t change.” That’s what Josef B. said this morning at the start of the lawsuit against him. The Ruinerwold handyman is suspected of abuse and deprivation of liberty of the children of Gerrit Jan van D. The family, who lived in seclusion for years on a farm in Ruinerwold, became world news when they were discovered in 2019.
Court president Elly Lähkamp discussed the statements of the nine children of the Van D family this morning. The eldest three, who were often mistreated by their father and isolated from the rest, fled the family before moving to Ruinerwold in 2010. All the children stated that Josef B. never slapped them. He was, however, sometimes present when they were beaten or they were in seclusion with him.
“B. is someone who was beaten by his father. He was not allowed to decide for himself. I therefore defend him,” said eldest son Shin. “He was also abused by father.” Several children have stated about this: “Once B. was beaten very badly because he had looked at our mother with the wrong eyes. B. accepted everything. He was really beaten up and by that I mean that he was beaten for more than ten minutes. Shin said.
New Messiah
After joining the Moon sect in the 1970s, Van D. saw himself as the new Messiah, who had to create a new world. He was the prime father, his wife – who passed away in 2004 – was the prime mother and the children the prime children. He wanted to prepare them for the new world. Josef B. was a follower of Van D., who did everything for him.
Austrian B., who says he has lived permanently in the Netherlands since 2002, gave his income as a furniture maker to Van D., did the shopping and renovated the farm in Ruinerwold. He also made various spaces in the shed in Meppel, where the family lived around 2009, as he had also done in the house in Zwartsluis.
Maintain situation
Without B. (61) the situation, in which the six youngest children were completely shielded from the outside world, could not have survived, several children have stated. Second son Edino: “I am 100 percent convinced that without Josef my father would not have been able to maintain the situation. He brought food and paid the rent. Otherwise we could not have stayed there. Josef knew, but he himself did not forbid us anything and had no part in the violence.”
The OM does not accuse B. of hitting the children himself, but that he – by helping Van D. – made it possible for him to do this and that also applies to the deprivation of liberty. Although the youngest children have all stated that they could actually leave, but did not, because they were not yet ready for the outside world.
Father Van D. wanted to keep the youngest children ‘clean’ by means of the seclusion. Because the eldest three children did go to school, they formed a kind of cover for the rest. Because they did come into contact with the outside world, according to Van D. they took bad spirits home with them. That was why they were more often mistreated and separated from the rest than the youngest six.
No contact with the children
The youngest children have also stated that they have never had contact with B.. He himself also said this to the police after he was arrested. One night in 2010, he brought the children with Van D. to the farm in Ruinerwold and did not see them again after that. After father Gerrit Jan van D. had a stroke in 2016, he did see Israel. That was his contact. It was the same Israel who ran away in October 2019, after which the family became world news.
About why he rented buildings for Van D. and his children, B. stated that Van D. wanted to stay out of it because he wanted to protect his children from the outside world. “If he put them by name, he would be famous.” In his own words, B. understood the choice to live so secluded with his children. “I have always supported that choice. I have not talked to anyone about the situation, because I was always aware of the misery that would come over them. I did not want that on my conscience,” said B. at the Police.
B. knew that he thereby helped to maintain the situation, he stated. In his own words, he shared Van D’s ideas. He stated in an interrogation that the Van D. family in Ruinerwold “lived in an idyllic situation”.
Deprivation of liberty compatriot
B. is also suspected of deprivation of liberty of a compatriot, who – just like him – worked for Van D.. In 2009, the man in the shed in Meppel, where the family was then staying, would have been mistreated, hanged and tied up by Van D. with the help of B. The Austrian was also locked up for weeks in a shack, where he only got apples and milk. According to B., the Austrian had gone mad and was released and sent back to Austria when he was “normal” again.
B. lived in that shed at the time and he continued to live there when the family, where only the youngest six were still with father, moved to Ruinerwold in 2010.