Family Schonenberg grows up grieving the Tiel fusillade

The fact that three family members were executed by the Germans without any trial, is a war story that lives on for sisters Annie (1946) and Maria Schonenberg (1951). Maria: ‘The portraits of my executed grandfather and uncles are still hanging on the wall; we see them every day.’

Hendrik Schonenberg (1876, farmer) and his sons Han (1908, bricklayer) and Wim (1909, carpenter) are executed by German Wehrmacht soldiers with 11 other Wamel residents on 20 September 1944. It’s an act of revenge by the Germans, because the Underground had fired shots at the ferry, commanded by the Kriegsmarine, earlier.

About 15 farmers and their sons were captured at the ferry road on the Waalband dyke and taken to Tiel. One man is executed before they leave Wamel. The Germans, having been to drinking party in café Russon, place the remaining fourteen men against the coupure (quay wall) and executed them. Maria: ‘The landlady tried offering money to stop the execution, but it was in vain.’

Their father did not get arrested; he was with his fiancée who was on duty. Marinus is left alone with his mother to run the farm. ‘The event has an immense impact on him,’ Annie recounts. ‘Now you would say: he suffers from PTDS, but that term did not exist back then.’

Annie: ‘He had happy moments, when he sang or danced with our mother on the farm. But you could see the sadness in his eyes; we see him suffering.’ Their father keeps his brothers’ wallet with bullet hole in it. In the family of 10, some of the children are named after the executed victims.

Maria: ‘He can’t be alone to this day, especially when he stops working. It comes back to him; he goes from surviving to living. Now that my mother has passed, I keep him company every night.’

The two sisters remember their grandmother, how she cried all the time. Maria: ‘Her bedroom was below mine; she’d be sick in bed. At night, I would hear her cry: ‘Our dear, come and get me. I want to go to my boys.’ Then she would hit the wall with a stick.’

As young as they were, the Schonenberg children went to the annual commemoration of the victims. First, in Tiel at the fourteen graves, later in Wamel. Maria: ‘My father wears his perished brother’s suit when he goes.’ They themselves faithfully join the commemoration still. Annie: ‘Except in 1973, when my daughter had just been born.’

People sometimes ask us: are you still focussed on it? Maria: ‘It never goes away, it’s part of our family history.’ The sisters have a folder full of prayer cards, photos of the murdered men, articles. Plus, a copy of the letter from a brother of two Van Echteld’s also executed; he describes how ‘the boys’ were shot at 8.30am.
The sisters have a copy of a report called ‘concerning the execution of 14 persons from the municipality of WAMEL on 20 September 1944 in Tiel. Prepared J.A. Nales, based on eyewitness statements.’ Annie: ‘It says that the Germans wanted to throw the bodies into the Waal, but that they were taken in reed mats to the Catholic cemetery in Tiel. There, they are laid shoulder to shoulder in a mass grave.’

The execution is more than just family history. The mayor of Wamel writes a report about it in 1946 and the Police Investigation Department Zaltbommel makes an official report in 1947. The case is forwarded to the United Nations War Crimes Commission. Newspapers write about it and their parents are interviewed for a TV programme.
‘It caused relatives so much pain,’ Maria says. ‘Not only us, but also the other families. We are close with those families; they are all farmers who help each other. With them, we once had a meeting to share information. The nice thing was we understand each other because of this shared history.’

Interview with Annie Schonenberg (1946)
By: Ineke Inklaar