Huybrecht and Johannes Koman were brothers and both chose the same life path, but had a completely different life course. In 1831 they were in the army to defend the prince’s honor against the Belgians during the ten-day campaign. Where one sees action against the Flemings, the other marches aimlessly through Belgium. Where one gets a pension and two medals, the other gets nothing.
The National Prison Museum is looking for stories from descendants of the Colonies. Curator Arend Geerts received 56 stories from descendants who researched their family history and found an ancestor in the Colonies of Benevolence. One of those stories is about the two medals. “This is my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, and this is my great-grandfather.” Ruben Koman’s finger ends on the name of Huybrecht Koman (1807-1866).
Ruben Koman is touched by the impact that whether or not fighting during the campaign has on the lives of the two brothers. “Huybrecht meets an undoubtedly beautiful woman near his camp and marries there and has many offspring. The other is arrested, goes to Veenhuizen and later also to Ommen. He ends up in the Colonies to be re-educated and there he is still still.”
Affected by brain damage after an accident, Ruben Koman is advised by a doctor to do puzzles for his recovery. “But I don’t like sudokus, so I picked up an old hobby: genealogy, family tree research. And so I literally did brain training again and slowly learned this story.”
In addition to better brains, it also earned him the two medals. “You then call people with the same last name. They are all from Huybrecht, by the way. Then you get people to talk about you and that’s how I got those medals.”
Curator Arend Geerts gladly accepts the medals on loan. And that’s not because the medals are rare. “Tens of thousands of these have been awarded,” explains Geerts. “But what’s special is that we know exactly who they belonged to and we can link them to people who are still alive.”
“And what makes it extra special is that the man of the medals, a kind of war hero, had a brother who had a very unhappy life. And that life took place in Veenhuizen and that is the link with the museum and the exhibition .”