- Born 22-01-1910 in Lonneker.
- Deceased 07-10-1944 in Weerselo, executed at Twente airport – 34 years.
- Parents Gerrit Cornelis Henrikus Hulsbeek, factory worker, and Maria Johanna Krone.
- Born 09-09-1919 in Enschede.
- Deceased 19-10-1944 in Weerselo, executed at Twente airport – 25 years.
- Parents Gerrit Cornelis Henrikus Hulsbeek, factory worker, and Maria Johanna Krone.
The family lived with their eight children at 30 Hessenweg in Enschede. Gerrit was a painter and Jannes was a factory worker. During the war Gerrit performed important illegal work for the group of chaplain de Hosson. His brother Jannes was also a member of this group, as well as his friend Hessel Zwarts. Jannes was involved in espionage in Germany, mainly in the border area. Hosson was chaplain of the St. Jacobuskerk in Enschede. He set up a vigilante group that operated under the name ‘Prince Bernard’. A friend of one of the members got into a relationship with a Dutch S.D.-er and betrayed the group. The arrested chaplain de Hosson was shot dead on 31-10-1944 in Gronau.
Gerrit was arrested on the Hessenweg at the end of September 1944 by six SD agents, including two Dutchmen. They took him to the building of the S.D. on Tromplaan. From there they took him to the bunkers at the airport where he was executed together with Jules Haeck on 7 October.
His brother Jannes was arrested the same day at his landlady on the Reudinkstraat. He was shot and buried at the airport together with Hessel Zwarts on 19 October. At the end of October 1944, the family was informed that the boys had been executed as terrorists. It was not until three years later, in October 1947, that the remains of the brothers – along with those of ten other prisoners – were taken on the instructions of the captured S.D. Chief Schöber was found near the bunkers on the Weerselose part of the airport. Their mother, torn by grief, had already died in October 1946. Their father died in 1951.
Buried: R.K. Cemetery in Enschede, reburied on the National Field of Honor in Loenen, section A, no. 582 and A 581.
Resistance monument and Stolpersteine in Enschede.
Memorial near the airport in Deurningen.
In Enschede, a street is named after the two brothers: the Hulsbeekgaarde.
* Their brother Joop said the following about this in 2006: It is difficult to answer which activities my brothers performed for the resistance. “I know that Gerrit worked as a painter for a German boss. And that he had to assess the damage to the government buildings that had been destroyed by the bombing of the Allies. Jannes also regularly visited Germany as a co-driver. I suspect they passed on information. Jannes, for example, knew exactly where the allied planes that flew over Enschede towards Germany were going. Three days later you read the names of the cities he had mentioned in the paper. My sister and I were sometimes surprised about that.
