After setting up this blog a few years ago, I am amazed that I still come across stories of heroes I had never heard of before.
Ernst Sillim was born in 1923, the first of five children. Shortly before that, his father, Albert, a stockbroker, and his mother, Annie, moved from Amsterdam to a house in Baarn with a view of the vast Eempolder. The children had a carefree childhood there. The family was enterprising and sporty: they swam in the Eem, rowed, sailed and went ice skating. In the summer months, they went out in their campervan—a novelty in those pre-war years.
Ernst also liked to play hockey and loved acting. School interests him less. His headstrong behaviour led to clashes with his father. Whenever he neglected schoolwork, he was punished (not allowed to play hockey or act in school plays). This headstrongness and stubbornness would serve him well in years to come.
When the Nazis occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, Ernst and his school friend, Jaap van Mesdag, joined the resistance together after that invasion.
Ernst and Jaap were classmates at the Baarnsch Lyceum. Ernst occupied himself by stealing ammunition and chalking up anti-German slogans in the Baarnsch Lyceum.
In 1942, they decided to join the British army to fight against the Germans.
Ernst and Jaap want to cross from the South Holland island of Goeree Overflakkee to England with Ernst’s folding canoe. That happened on the night of August 31, 1942. When their canoe was about to sink in the North Sea in a sudden storm, they were intercepted by a German naval ship.
They were arrested and transferred to Kamp Amersfoort, where they suffered from severe hunger. In 1943, Sillem and Van Mesdag were deported to the Natzweiler-Struthof Camp, a so-called Nacht und Nebelkamp. In the Camps, resistance fighters and political prisoners were subjected to a harsh regime as forced labourers. They were supposed to remain anonymous and eventually die and disappear.
When this Nacht und Nebel Camp was evacuated in September 1944. Sillem and Van Mesdag were transferred to Dachau. Sillem worked in the BMW factory of the Allach satellite camp. He was discovered to be a Nacht und Nebel prisoner and sent back to Dachau in January 1945, where he contracted typhoid fever. He was liberated by the US Army on 29 April 1945.
When this Nacht und Nebel Camp was evacuated in September 1944. Sillem and Van Mesdag were transferred to Dachau. Sillem worked in the BMW factory of the Allach satellite camp. He was discovered to be a Nacht und Nebel prisoner and sent back to Dachau in January 1945, where he contracted typhoid fever. He was liberated by the US Army on 29 April 1945.
Sillem started working at a citrus orchard in Morocco in 1947. Later, he and his wife started their own citrus plantation near Agadir. He divorced and remarried a Franco-German woman. When his plantation was nationalized in 1976, Sillem settled in France with his second wife, where he started a rabbit breeding business. After the death of his second wife, he remarried a French artist and settled in Provence. Here, he started a food bank.
Sillem had been the chairman of the Circle of Friends of Oud-Natzweilers since 2009. He passed away at the age of 97 years old on 17 October 2020.
People like Ernst Sillem and Jaap van Mesdag make me proud to be Dutch.
Sources
https://nos.nl/artikel/2352855-verzetsstrijder-ernst-sillem-laatste-overlever-elzas-kamp-overleden
https://oorlogsverhalen.com/oorlogsverhalen/ernst-sillem/
https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/406974
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