Dutch prophilic Social-Democratic writer, critic and journalist, a victim of brute Nazi retaliation.
He was the youngest surviving child in a poor Catholic family of 13 children. Only 3 survived the of age 2.
His father Melchior de Jong (20 December 1855, Nieuw-Vossemeer – 4 March 1935, Eindhoven) was a brush maker and factory worker. His mother was Pieternella Johanna Hazen (4 July 1858, Tholen – 23 January 1922, Delft).
He got fame with his regional novel series and autobiographical Bildungsroman Merijntje Gijzen. He used the penn-names: Een jeugdige grijsaard, Titia Roemer, Herbert D. Ross and Frank van Waes.
He was kept hostage in July 1942 by the Nazi’s for having published his “illegal” Social Democratic sympathies in papers and books. Because he was ill, he was released soon.
De Jong became a victim of the Operation Silbertanne (silver fir), the codename of a series of murders taking place between September 1943 and September 1944 carried out by a death squad composed of Dutch members of the SS and Dutch veterans of the Eastern Front.
On 18 October two members of the Dutch SS dressed as civilians visited him at home. They chatted about the obliged darkening of the windows, got from him a a cup of tea and shot him in the head when leaving.
Personal.
On 7 November 1915 De Jong married the school teacher Jacoba Cornelia (Co) Koekebacker ( – 17 February 1936). They got a daughter and a son. After her death, he married the singer Marie-Louise Josephine (Wies) Defresne.
De Jong was an eager smoker and raised during WW2 350 tobacco plants in his garden in Blaricum, which should deliver him 400 cigars.
Link to German Wikipedia