Walter Kattenburg

Private collection

From this house Jan Bartels as one of the first, did his resistance actions against the Germans. He was arrested there on 26 September 1941 and never returned from captivity. His wife, Annie Bartels-Striethorst, has hided in this house the couple Kattenburg, Kurt Schöndorff & Ella Meijer and Edgar Weinberg against the persecution of Jews.On 16 February 1944 a raid was committed by traitors. Only Ella Schöndorff managed to escape. Of all other residents only Edgar Weinberg returned from Auschwitz.Later an illegal radio station and weapons depot were located here. The daughter of the house, Els Bartels, fought alongside the vigilante group "Nijmegen" against the enemy.

The current residents of the house on the Bijenstand 1 at Laren have this plaque at the front door to remember the people in hiding who no longer returned from the German concentration camps.

Hiding place 1: the corner of the middle room, where behind our bedroom was hidden.
Blaricum, 1943

Hiding place 2: The open door of the shelter. It shows the lock and the footboard of my bed below the straw roof.
Blaricum, 1943

Hiding place 3: the entire shelter as drawed through two room walls. To the left is the entrance where laundry bags are hanging and to see is a small part of the middle room. To the right the next room is to see, where the length of the loft lies behind. In the shelter two beds with heads against each other. Radio, reading light, Telephone, etchings, family snapshots, the map of Tunis and Russia. Behind the cardboard wall, photo album, laundry. The corner in front, yellow silk “pour faire joli”, an etching, a suitcase and a flask to pee in an emergency.

Blaricum, 1943

Well-worn shoulder blades of illegal slaughtered cows, filed, sanded, polished and engraved by Kurt Schön Dorff and Edgard Weinberg with Chinese or Japanese drawings from old art books which were sold in Amsterdam against high prices as pieces of ivory in order to provide in the hiding there.This item was manufactured in January 1944.

Algemeen Handelsblad van 7-4-1930