Municipal monument

The occupancy history of the house on Hendrik Veeneman Street is linked to World War II. The house was built in 1934, commissioned by the parents of Henk Veeneman. Hendrikus (Henk)Antonius Johannes Veeneman was born in Woensel on September 9, 1909. On August 1, 1924, as a fourteen-year-old, he started working as a volunteer (unpaid civil servant, apprentice) in the town hall of Son en Breugel, and on January 1, 1929, his appointment as a paid civil servant followed. On Aug. 8, 1941, he became town clerk under Mayor R.A.L.M.H. Schoepp. In 1943, Schoepp had to cooperate in the employment of residents of Son and Breugel. Because he did not cooperate sufficiently in the eyes of the German occupiers, Schoepp was taken hostage on December 31, 1943, and imprisoned in Vught.

Henk is appointed acting mayor. He has only been in office for a short time when the occupying forces again requisition a number of male residents to do earth-moving work in Zeeland. Henk and six fellow mayors in the area refuse to cooperate. They are summoned by telegram to report to the Beauftragte Sellmer in Vught on July 5, 1944. After their interrogation, they were arrested and imprisoned in Camp Vught. On September 6, 1944, two weeks before the liberation of Son and Breugel, Henk was put on transport to Camp Sachsenhausen in Oranienburg. At the end of February 1945 he was transferred to Mauthausen camp where he died on April 14, 1945. It took almost another year before the family received certainty about Henk's fate. On January 8, 1946, the family received a letter announcing Henk's death. When it was clear that Henk would not return, his wife had the text "Henk's Home" affixed to the house in 1947.