Antonia Tichelman-Geerdink, affectionately known as ‘grandmother Antonia’, was 91 years old and lived in the hamlet of De Kulsdom on the farm called Stroomboer. In April 1944, hundreds of British planes were flying towards Germany. One of them was hit by a German fighter plane and had to drop its bombs to stay airborne. By terrible misfortune, one of the bombs landed directly on Stroomboer. Antonia, who had been sitting quietly by the stove, was buried under the rubble. She was seriously injured and taken to hospital in Enschede, where she died a few days later. On the farm ’t Wes in the neighbouring hamlet of De Respelhoek lived Gerrit Hiddink, a true resistance hero. He feared nothing and hid Jewish people as well as British, Canadian and Russian soldiers on his farm.There was even space for a two-year-old boy who had been abandoned in a pram on the side of the road. The Hiddinks gave him the hiding name ‘Tonny van ’t Wes’. After the war, when Tonny was five years old, he was reunited with his Jewish father, who had also survived.
In 2021, Tonny was traced again. His real name turned out to be Simon de Winter. After 77 years, he was reunited with the Hiddink family. Sadly, things ended tragically for Gerrit.
In June 1944, a German raiding van entered the yard. Gerrit calmly approached the soldiers, spoke with them, and managed to prevent a house search. However, he was taken for questioning and sent to Camp Vught. Later that year, he was transported in a cattle wagon to Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, and then on to the Neuengamme penal labour camp near Hamburg. Gerrit died in February 1945, just three months before the liberation. He was 43 years old.
Simon de Winter
In 2020, a search began to uncover more about what had happened to Gerrit Hiddink. During that investigation, people realised that “Tonny van ’t Wes”, the little boy once hidden on the Hiddink farm, might still be alive. An appeal was placed in the New Israel Weekly, and after some time, a man named Simon de Winter got in touch. He revealed that he was indeed the foundling Tonny. Simon lives in Teteringen, a small village near Breda, but he is originally from Enschede. On 5 May 2022, he was reunited with the Hiddink family, together with his own children and grandchildren. After 77 years, it was a deeply moving and beautiful tribute to Gerrit Hiddink, the brave resistance hero who once gave him shelter.