Godefridus Hubertus Hendrikx

Geslacht: Man
Vader: Peter Hubertus Hendrikx
Moeder: Theodora Willems
Geboren: 3 MRT 1889 Neer
Overleden: 21 Dec 1975 Venlo
Beroep: landbouwer
Aantekeningen: Family Name Hendrikx
First Name Frits
Fate survived
Nationality THE NETHERLANDS
Gender Male
Profession FARMER
Mozes van der Veen (later, Moshe Agmon), born in 1932, and his brother Emanuel van der Veen, born in 1938, were living in Amsterdam, where they attended public school. With the intensification of the anti Jewish measures and the start of the razzias in the city, they had a narrow escape a number of times by running to neighbors or to the roof of their own building a number of times. However, with the start of the systematic deportations of the Jews from the Netherlands to "work in the East" in the summer of 1942, their parents Jacob and Femmina van der Veen (née Waterman) decided to try and find hiding places for their children first. By the end of 1942, both were taken into hiding by a woman who was part of an underground network and unknown to them. They were taken to the village of Grubbenvorst (prov. Limburg), where the local priest Henricus Vullinghs* initiated and encouraged his parishioners to hide mostly Jewish children. Mozes, then ten years old, was taken to Frits and Johanna Hendrikx, a Roman Catholic family of farmers in the nearby village of Horst with six children, the youngest at elementary school. Mozes was accepted into the family as just another child and was treated as one of them. He could not go to school, however, as his presence with the Hendrikxes was to be kept a secret; he also did not have papers that would give him a false identity. Mozes passed his days by helping out on the farm and stayed around the farmhouse at all times.
His presence with the Hendrikx family was dangerous, as there were persistent rumors of hidden Jews and later downed allied pilots in the area. Especially after the arrest of Vullinghs* in May 1944, the presence of the hidden Jews became precarious for all, as he knew the whereabouts of all of them. In addition, there were German SS in the village at all times, sometimes even billeted in the homes of villagers. As a result, Mozes had to hide in the hayfrom time to time, even though soldiers would stick their bayonets into the stack in order to detect people in hiding. On such occasions "I would move from side to side as quietly as possible. It is a miracle that they did not detect me", Mozes notes in his testimony. When the coast was clear, Mozes would go back into the house. On one occasion, SS men came to the farm and directly threatened Frits Hendrikx, demanding that he hand over a Jew they knew was hidden with the family. Frits managed to convince them this was not the case and they left. Mozes was immediately taken into a nearby forest, where he stayed for two weeks, receiving food on a daily basis. Mozes' younger brother, Emanuel, was in hiding about one kilometer away with the Beeker* family. He would sometimes go secretly to visit him and see if he was all right, as he felt a personal responsibility for him as the older brother. Mozes stayed with the Hendrikxes until the liberation of the village in September 1944. The parents of the van der Veen brothers were betrayed at their hiding address and deported. They both perished in Auschwitz in 1944. As no other direct family members had survived either, the van der Veen brothers found themselves in various orphanages, until they immigrated to Israel. Contact was lost as the past was too traumatic for Mozes. Nonetheless, contact was more recently renewed with the Hendrikx children. On March 11, 2007, Yad Vashem recognized Frits Hendrikx and Johanna G. Hendrikx-Bouten as Righteous Among the Nations.

Gezin 1

Huwelijkspartner: Johanna Gertrudis Bouten geb. 15 Apr 1890 overl. 2 MEI 1979
Huwelijk: 6 Aug 1920 Grubbenvorst
Kinderen:
  Johanna Antonia Hendrix Male geb. 8 Sept 1901 overl. 29 Juni 1948