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This residential house served as an SD prison in the last year of the war, where many were severely abused, which culminated in some fatalities in the final days before liberation.
Some indescribable events must have occurred here as residents in the vicinity heard some bone chilling sounds reverberate. There was no other way. An SD prison was located here from 1944.
The original residents had been evicted from 1942, which is a scene that played out in the entire street during the war. All kinds of German divisions, such as the bauleitung (site manager) of the airfield under construction (Fliegerhorst) in neighbouring Havelte, had settled in this attractive part of Meppel.
Similarly, an SD unit, originally from Lille (France), but on the run from the advancing Allies settled in Meppel in mid-1944. They conducted a bestial regime in the region, in search of resistance collaborators, absconders and Jews, but they were also outright criminals in search of valuables and active in black-market trade.
A no-holds-barred policy was the consequence and soon one of the houses they confiscated was therefore set up as a prison, which locals were quick to call Sing Sing (a well-known prison in USA before the war).
There was only one goal for the thugs in uniform, including Dutch nationals: to get prisoners to talk, and they were ruthless in using all possible sadistic methods on both men and women. Statements given with accompanying photos of the tortured victims after the war showed this with sickening clarity.
The absolute low point was the execution of five resistance fighters who were executed on 4 April 1945, nine days before the liberation by a Canadian regiment, on the Zuidweg towards Staphorst in the early hours of the morning. They have been commemorated on the spot where they died for years by the former Meppel Resistance. The original site has since disappeared with the construction of the A32, but a monument about 10 metres away still bears witness to this. A current location that belongs to the municipality of Staphorst, the Staphorst primary school, has agreed to adopt the monument.
The SD prison was also briefly used after the war by the Internal Armed Forces (Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten - BS) as a holding place for the Dutch transgressors. Even then, detainees and prisoners who had not yet been convicted were treated abysmally. The Military Authority in Drenthe therefore quickly intervened and closed the prison within weeks.
Author: Wim Sagel