Johannis Joosten

This memorial page is dedicated to Johannis Joosten, one of more than 725 war victims connected to the municipality of Deurne documented by Stichting Oorlogsslachtoffers. The municipality of Deurne and the surrounding villages of Liessel, Vlierden, Helenaveen, Neerkant and Zeilberg were liberated in the autumn of 1944 during heavy fighting. Victims fell on all sides: Allied soldiers from countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and New Zealand, and German soldiers.

But the archive covers more than just the combat victims on Deurne soil. Residents of Deurne who lost their lives elsewhere are also commemorated: civilians who were murdered in concentration camps, forced labourers who died in Germany, people who were executed or succumbed to the effects of persecution and oppression. In addition, residents of Deurne who entered German military service and were killed elsewhere are also included.

Stichting Oorlogsslachtoffers has been documenting the story of all these people since 1995, without distinction of nationality, side or background. The goal is to give every person a name and a face, and to keep their memory alive.

Additional information

Grave location: Can no longer be identified.

Son of Jacobus Joosten and Johanna van der Heyden.

Johannis Joosten was professed as a missionary of the Sacred Heart in Tilburg on 10 April 1898; he was a brother missionary of the Sacred Heart with expertise in agriculture, which he had learnt from an early age at home. He worked for three years as a brother at the monastery in Tilburg, then for three years at the monastery in Antwerp, and subsequently for three years at the monastery in Heverlee-Leuven. In 1907, he left for the mission in the Dutch East Indies, specifically to Merauke in New Guinea, and worked there until 1922, when, after a few months’ leave in the Netherlands, he set off for the Kei Islands.

At the end of July 1942, the Japanese occupied the building of the Roman Catholic Mission in Langgoer (Klein Kai); the residents and missionaries were herded into the boarding school chapel, where they were divided into three groups. On the instructions of a few Muslim traitors, the missionaries were accused of deceiving the people of Kei and were forced to go to the beach. There, by the jetty in front of the mission house, they were made to wade into the water and were blindfolded with their own handkerchiefs. Boarding school pupils and villagers were forced to gather in the immediate vicinity of the missionaries and the Japanese soldiers. Finally, a brief command was given; one priest cried out: ‘Oentoek Christoes, Radja kita, for Christ, our Lord.’ A volley of shots took the lives of Johannis Joosten and twelve other missionaries.

Although the birth register records the first name as Johannis, the memorial card – as in various archives – also features the alternative spelling Johannes.

Prayer card

Mission buildings in Langgoer

De Tijd: Religious and political daily newspaper, 13 November 1945.

View all persons in the category: Shot, liquidated or murdered in some other way