Execution in Dronrijp

In the early spring of 1945, the Allied troops were winning. To impede the German retreat, resistance groups received orders from London: “sabotage road, rail and water”.  

On 8 April 1945, the words “De fles is leeg” (the bottle is empty) were broadcast on Radio Oranje. This code message was the start signal for the resistance to begin disabling bridges, roads and railway lines thirty-six hours later.  

On the night of 9 April 1945, the Dronrijp resistance group sabotaged fifteen metres of the railway bridge near the Bolswarder Trekvaart between Leeuwarden and Franeker. The next day, this derailed a German goods train with anti-aircraft guns and electric motors. The Germans immediately recruited twenty-five men from the surrounding villages of Blessum, Boksum and Deinum for repair work. The men could do little because everything was too heavy to move manually. The Germans forced the men to wait for a railroad crane. They were only allowed to go home the next day. 

The German Sicherheitsdienst (SD) reacted immediately: fourteen prisoners from Leeuwarden were to be shot at the Hatzum station outside Dronrijp in response. The resistance movement in Leeuwarden intercepted all calls from the Sicherheitsdienst and planned a liberation operation at the place of the derailment. On 11 April, SD drove 14 prisoners to Dronrijp in passenger cars. The convoy was halted at the Van Harinxmakanaal. The bridge was open, and the bridge-keeper was nowhere to be seen. Just then a plane flew over and the Germans panicked thinking it was an English fighter plane. To avoid wasting time, the “Todeskandidaten” were taken out of the cars and shot on the spot. One of them, Gerard de Jong, survived the execution. With the help of residents of Dronrijp, he was cared for and brought to safety. Friesland was liberated a few days later, on Sunday, 15 April 1945.  

The names of the victims are:

Sijbrandus van Dam; Heinrich Harder; Dirk de Jong; Hendrik Jan de Jong; Ruurd Kooistra; Johannes Nieuwland; Hendrik Jozef Spoelstra; Douwe Tuinstra; Egbert Mark Wierda; Hyltje Wierda; Klaas Wijpcke Wierda; O. van Dijk and J.M. Ducaneaux. The last two did not get a memorial at the monument at the foot of the bridge in Dronrijp, because one was a deserter from the SS and the other an impostor.