Camp Vught - barbed-wire fences, and guard towers
(image - British Army photograph, 1945, public domain)
Jacoba Roelofs
In 1941, at the age of seventeen, Jacoba Roelofs from Utrecht got a job as an administrative assistant at Het Nationale Dagblad, the newspaper of the Dutch National Socialist Movement. Already sympathetic to National Socialism, the following year her sympathies increased further when she fell in love with a German soldier. Bored with life in the Netherlands, and under the influence of her German boyfriend, she wanted desperately to move to Germany.
But as a minor, she needed permission from her parents. The Netherlands had been under Nazi occupation since May, 1940 and her father was anti-German. He didn't want to lose his daughter and he refused to let her go.
However, she didn't need parental consent if she could become an "employee of the Reich." Against her father's wishes she applied to become a guard in a concentration camp, thinking it would be her ticket to Germany. On October 15, 1943 she arrived at "Kamp Vught" as an aufseherin (overseer). Camp Vught, officially known as KL Herzogenbusch, was a concentration camp under the direct command of the SS just outside the town of Vught in the southern Netherlands.
The camp held both male and female prisoners, including Jews, criminals, asocials, political activists and communists captured in Belgium and the Netherlands. The guard staff included SS men and about ten SS women, headed by Oberaufseherin (Chief Overseer) Margarete Gallinat.
Roelofs was only there a few months when she was transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland where there was a shortage of female staff. In the women's camp at Birkenau, Roelofs supervised, among other things, the camp bathhouse and a potato field commando.
In January 1945, Auschwitz was evacuated due to the advancing Soviet army. Roelofs fled to France, where she was recognised by former camp prisoners. She was arrested on July 1, 1945 and after nine months of French internment, was extradited to the Netherlands where she was taken to camp De Roskam, a military barracks in Weesp, for interrogation.
When she was in Camp Vught, Roelofs became friends with another Dutch aufseherin, 23-year-old Ria Jorink from Dalfsen.
Ria Jorink
Ria had a particularly bad relationship with her father, who was an agricultural worker with thirteen children to support. He was always short of money and after the death of her mother in 1934, Ria was expected to take care of the other children.
Roelofs was only there a few months when she was transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland where there was a shortage of female staff. In the women's camp at Birkenau, Roelofs supervised, among other things, the camp bathhouse and a potato field commando.
In January 1945, Auschwitz was evacuated due to the advancing Soviet army. Roelofs fled to France, where she was recognised by former camp prisoners. She was arrested on July 1, 1945 and after nine months of French internment, was extradited to the Netherlands where she was taken to camp De Roskam, a military barracks in Weesp, for interrogation.
When she was in Camp Vught, Roelofs became friends with another Dutch aufseherin, 23-year-old Ria Jorink from Dalfsen.
Ria Jorink
Ria had a particularly bad relationship with her father, who was an agricultural worker with thirteen children to support. He was always short of money and after the death of her mother in 1934, Ria was expected to take care of the other children.
In 1940, Ria worked as a maid for a family who supported the Dutch National Socialist Movement. After work, she fraternised with German soldiers and fell in love with a Dutch SS man named Bernard Becker. He persuaded her to apply for a position as a camp guard and join him in Camp Vught.
At the beginning of September 1943 Ria began work there as an aufseherin for 100 guilders a month. It was her job to supervise the workers of the Philips electrical company who had a workshop inside the Camp.
After a few months in Camp Vught, Jorink, like her friend Jacoba Roelofs, was transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.
In the women's camp at Birkenau, Jorink was given the task of supervising Polish women employed in the kitchen. She started a relationship in Auschwitz with a German SS guard named Walther Janszen.
In March 1944, Jorink was accused of bartering with prisoners and was detained in the prison bunker. Her friend Walther visited her daily and she became pregnant with him during her imprisonment. After six weeks in custody, she was transferred to the Kovno ghetto in Lithuania; a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas.
She arrived there on May 23, 1944. It is not known what she did in Kaunas, but on July 8, 1944, the ghetto was evacuated by the SS. Most of the Jews were deported to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany or to the Stutthof camp, near Danzig, on the Baltic coast. It's thought that Jorink accompanied the Jews from Kaunus to the Stutthof camp and remained there until the camp was evacuated in January 1945. Jorink then left the camp and travelled by train to Berlin, where she found work in an aircraft factory. After a few months in Berlin, she had to move again because of the advancing Soviet army.
During a train trip to Wiesbaden, she gave birth to a daughter who was later adopted by a foster family.
She managed to evade capture until June 1945 when she was arrested and extradited to the military barracks at camp De Roskam in the Netherlands and then to a prison in Maastricht to await trial. At camp De Roskam she was reunited with her friend Jakoba Roelofs.
Trials and Sentencing
At Ria Jorink's trial, there was no evidence that she had mistreated prisoners while serving at Camp Vught. Almost all witnesses made exculpatory statements about her except for three Auschwitz survivors, Marianne Lam, Cilia Blits and Rachel Kokemoot.
They stated that Jorink delighted in beating prisoners with a whip. However, an investigation by her defence team showed that when these three prisoners arrived in Auschwitz, Jorink was already imprisoned in the bunker and the witnesses were forced to withdraw their statements. Was it a case of mistaken identity or did these three Auschwitz survivors attempt to frame her?
Although she was cleared of the mistreatment of prisoners she was still guilty of collaborating with the enemy by working as a guard in Vught, Auschwitz, the Jewish Ghetto of Kaunas and Stutthof. Because of her lawyer's brilliant defence and the lack of incriminating evidence, she received a suspended prison sentence of eighteen months.
At Jacoba Roelof's trial, there was no evidence that she had mistreated prisoners either, but two of the same Auschwitz survivors, who had failed in their attempt to frame Ria Jorink, testified that Jacoba Roelofs was a cruel guard with a sadistic and abusive disposition.
Unlike Ria Jorink, Jacoba Roelofs had poor legal representation and the statements from the Auschwitz survivors were not challenged in court. Roelofs denied the accusations but was given a 10 year prison sentence. However, she only served part of it and was released in mid-1953.
Shortly after her release, Roelofs married Hermanus Jorink, the brother of her friend Ria. He had been a soldier in the Korean war and had lost both his hands in combat. Their marriage remained childless. Jacoba Roelofs died on November 12, 1998.
In 1952, Ria Jorink married Bernard Becker, the Dutch SS man who had encouraged her to become an aufseherin at Camp Vught. The marriage produced a son. The fate of her daughter, from her relationship with the German SS guard, Walther Janszen in Auschwitz, remains unknown. Ria Jorink died in 1998, the same year as her friend Jakoba Roelofs.
Reference: Historisch Nieuwsblad
