Biography

More about Maurits van Noord.

Forgotten victims, psychiatric institution Willem Arntz Hoeve during the Second World War. A part from chapter 4, pages 118 to 121: 2 Februrary 1943, the first round-up

.......When Engelhard shortly visited the Willem Arntz Huis in the Agnietenstraat in Utrecht after his visit to the "Beauftragte", (representative) he was startled by a phone call from the porter of the Willem Arntz Hoeve. Around two o'clock two men had reported to the management building who wanted to speak to the doctor from the evacuated department of Santpoort. When they were brought to this doctor P. van der Esch, they identified themselves as “Spaans”, (Maarten) and “Dusschoten” (Marinus) of the criminal investigation department in The Hague. They said they had come on behalf of the German Sicherheitspolizei. The two men were eager to know “if perhaps a patient had recently run away”?

Van der Esch replied that something like this happened often, but that he could not name names because of his official secrecy. The two detectives told Van der Esch that he knew just as well as they did that a certain "patient Van Noord" had run away. This Maurits van Noord had been arrested at his hiding place and had stated at the Amsterdam police station that he had not been ill at all and had simulated his insanity. In this way he would have managed to hide in the asylum in Santpoort. The father of this escaped patient is also said to have found shelter in the institution.

Van der Esch replied to the detectives that Van Noord did not have a good insight into his illness and that he would not have discharged him if he was not in the open ward, from which a patient could leave if he or she wanted to. Spaans and Dusschoten did not believe him; they were firmly convinced that Van der Esch, but also his assistant dr.A. Haxe, were sheltering people in the hospital who didn't belong there.

Both detectives then wanted to look into the doctor's records to look up Van Noord's medical history. When Van der Esch refused them this because that content was covered by his official secrecy, they ignored this. The men told Van der Esch that he would be arrested on the basis of his refusal to cooperate in a police investigation and they subsequently searched the patient records themselves. They did not find a card in the name of Van Noord.......

Source: the book by Marco Gietema, Cecile aan de Stegge, “Vergeten slachtoffers, Psychiatrische inrichting de Willem Arntz Hoeve in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, (Forgotten victims, psychiatric institution Willem Arntz Hoeve during the Second World War), Amsterdam, edited by Boom, 2017.

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