The story in English
After almost a year of being in hiding, Jozef and Regina met their fate: in August of 1943 the Germans raided Ellerhuizen..Jozef fled from the house and was shot down in a field. Regina cut her wrists in an attempted suicideHowever, both survived and the local doctor Frik was summoned to see to them. He was given strict instructions not to mention the incident.
Mr. Ottens was sent to the concentration camp at Vught, but he was released in 1944 for medical reasons and so he survived. During the raid someone else had been present. This was the policeman Elzinga from Bedum. He was very zealous about sniffing out people in hiding and had been warned several times by the resistance. At a later date, he was shot in Groningen by Reint Dijkema, a member of the resistance. Although they were wounded, both Jozef and Regina were transported to the German Police Headquarters on the Grote Markt in Groningen( called 'Het Scholtenshuis'). Here they would be interrogated. Jozef jumped down from the first floor, but wasn’t killed.
It had been opened on August 16th 1942 and was meant for mass destruction: the Nazis wanted to be able to destroy greater numbers more efficiently, without there being too much noise or camp life being unduly disrupted. The gas chambers were situated outside the camp. (In this respect, the camp differed from Auschwitz I.) In 1941 10.000 Russian prisoners had had to start construction on the site of a village. This village was evacuated and torn down, yielding supplies for the concentration camp. For three days and nights Jozef and Regina traveled in a cattle wagon on their way to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Immediately upon their arrival they were taken to the gas chambers and killed.
It wasn’t until 1951 that the death of Jozef and Regina Meijer was registered with the municipal offices of Bedum. The minutes of the society ‘De Eendracht’ mention that Jozef Meijer’s death was commemorated during a meeting in 1945.
