Wilhelmus van der Zanden

This memorial page is dedicated to Wilhelmus van der Zanden, 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

Son of Henricus van der Zanden and Wilhelmina van der Steen. Willem was the brother of Leonardus Antonius van der Zanden.

Wilhelmus van der Zanden and his brother Leonardus Antonius van der Zanden were put to work by the Germans in the vicinity of Venlo, but managed to escape during an Allied air raid and ended up in the woods between Blerick and Sevenum (Römer, Zaarderheiken), which were teeming with people in hiding. In the late evening of Monday 16 October, the brothers set off with five others, including Gerardus Theodorus Johannes van Daal and Hendrikus Johannes Aerts, towards Deurne, with the aim of trying to break through the lines to reach the British. Between Griendtsveen and Zeilberg, at around three o’clock in the morning, the small group was spotted by a German patrol, which then fired a flare. Everyone took cover, during which Leonardus Antonius van der Zanden stepped on a plate mine. The four sustained life-threatening injuries. The remaining three people (Dutchmen who had been working on the tank trench) had been walking at the rear and remained unharmed.

Alerted by the flare and the explosion, the British had sent a patrol with a tank into the field. However, the tank hit a mine, so the patrol was only able to reach the wounded people in hiding at around seven o’clock in the morning. By then, the four had already died: they were Wilhelmus van der Zanden, Leonardus Antonius van der Zanden, Hendrikus Johannes Aerts and Gerardus Theodorus Johannes van Daal. The tragic aspect of this accident lay partly in the fact that the van der Zanden brothers from Zeilberg had already been liberated during the September 1944 corridor (Eindhoven–Nijmegen).

Report Book 109 of the Venlo municipal police reveals that the van der Zanden brothers were taken into custody by the SD (Sicherheitsdienst) and released by the SD on Friday 6 October 1944. They were killed in an accident 10 days later, just a few kilometres from their family home.

Memorial card

Joint memorial card

Death register

NBS

View all persons in the category: Residents of Deurne who lost their lives in Deurne