Several years ago, I came across Harm Knol Bruins in the Guy Liddell diaries. His story intrigued me and I dug deeper. How had a Dutchman, caught with a wireless transmitter, managed to escape the hangman’s noose? More to the point, why had his wife—complicit in his crimes—been shot by firing squad, while he survived?
My first blog post on Bruins dug into his background. He was a simple Dutch engineer who somehow became involved with the German Abwehr. I was then contacted by Ivar B., whose father-in-law was related to Bruins’ wife, Anna Lilian von Vaupel-Klein (she was his aunt). Ivar had discovered Dutch archival documents which shed some light on Bruins and his wife. My second blog post looked at the circumstances of their arrest in Belgium and subsequent transfer to France. Interested readers are invited to read both blog posts prior to diving into this one.
Over the last two years, Ivar has sent several emails with follow-up information. He had managed to get his hands on some papers from a French file on Anna’s execution, and tracked down further information on Bruins’ post-war activities. Even more stunning, Ivar had found old family photos which included one of the Bruins! So an update is in order.
Captured by the French
On 12 May 1940, Bruins and his wife were arrested at their home in Belgium. They had a cipher code and the parts for a wireless transmitter in their possession. The pair were taken to Fort Seclin, on the outskirts of Lille. They were tried before an Allied court but, according to Bruins, were found not guilty since there was no evidence that they had actually committed any espionage. Husband and wife were ordered to be interned for the duration of the war. They were to have been sent to the south of France, but due to the German invasion, it was decided to send them to Dunkirk. While Bruins escaped with his life, Anna was not so fortunate.
Wife of a Spy
Anna had been born 4 March 1909 in Poengei, a plantation area located just north of Bindjei (which is itself west of Medan) on the northeastern coast of Sumatra, in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Her parents were Gregorius Vaupel-Klein, a Dutchman, and an Indonesian woman simply named Painem. The couple had two other children, Govert (born 1910) and Jan Carle (born 1913). Gregorius worked for “Deli Maatschappij”, a Dutch company that owned numerous plantations in Sumatra, so many that they even had their own private railroad. The Vaupel-Klein family seems to have been rather well-off.
In 1913, at the age of four, Anna was sent to Holland to live with her father’s sister. It was apparently quite common for Dutch expats to send their children to Holland for schooling. Anna’s aunt, Anna Catharina Vaupel Klein, was a widow with three young children, so Anna would have had cousins to play with. By 1922, Anna’s father had returned to Holland, possibly after the death of his wife. He quickly remarried, but passed away a scant six years later at the relatively young age of 47. In the early 1930s, Anna made her way to Rotterdam where she ended up living with Bruins and his first wife, Rosina. Perhaps she was simply renting a room, or maybe she was the “hired help” (cook or housekeeper). Certainly the Bruins household would have been an active one with four teenaged children. It would appear that Bruins and Anna developed a closer relationship and in 1932, the pair moved to Knokke in Belgium. Once Bruins’ divorce from Rosina was finalized in 1934, the couple were free to marry, which they did on 17 October 1936.
Within a few years, the 58-year-old Bruins was in financial trouble, declaring bankruptcy in 1938. This was around the same time that he was recruited by the German Abwehr, perhaps driven by the promise of financial rewards. In March 1940, the couple moved from Knokke to De Panne, a seaside town on the northwest Belgian coast, just east of Dunkirk. In a letter to her younger brother, three weeks after the move, Anna wrote of her delight with the new, cheaper residence. Their two cats loved the place and the younger feline was already venturing out at night. Anna noted that she and Bruins were going through all of their boxes and crates and letting go of old things. She marveled at all of the stuff that one gathers over a lifetime. She sounded happy and contented with life. On 3 April, they would have celebrated Bruins’ 60th birthday. Anna herself had only recently celebrated her 31st birthday. Did she have any idea of her husband’s involvement with the German Abwehr? Was she a willing accomplice in his ill-fated plan, or simply a housewife who tended the home and cared for her husband and their two cats?
Whatever the case, the pair were both arrested for suspected espionage. While Bruins escaped via Dunkirk, his wife seemingly vanished into the chaos and never re-emerged. During his wartime internment in England, Bruins heard rumours and stories about what had happened to Anna, but it was only after the war, once he was back in Holland, that Bruins learned the full truth.
Anna’s Execution
In late May 1940, the Allies decided to send both Bruins and Anna to Dunkirk. While Bruins made it to the beleaguered coastal city and was eventually evacuated to England on 31 May, Anna was not so fortunate. Why the two were split up and sent in two different groups is unknown, but their fates could not have been more different.
Anna was part of a group of 108 civilian prisoners of war who departed Lille and headed in the direction of Dunkirk. They were accompanied by soldiers from a Régiment de Tirailleurs Marocains (Moroccan Tirailleurs Regiment) of the the 1st Moroccan Division. While most of the division had been left behind to defend Lille, a number of soldiers were detached for escort duty. Two thirds of the division were Moroccan volunteers while the remainder were French (officers, sous-officiers, and French volunteers). They were well-seasoned troops and their effective defense of Lille delayed the German advance on Dunkirk. By 26 May, the group of prisoners had reached Bailleul, having traversed a distance of 30 kilometres. They were only 50 kilometres from Dunkirk, but Anna would never make it.
(From Wikipedia)
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At 9:30 am on the morning of 27 May 1940, Anna and two other women were taken to a garden behind the Hôtel-Dieu in Bailleul. This was not a hotel, but rather a hospital (literally: God’s Hotel – a generic term for “hospital). Elsewhere, the documents note it was a psychiatric facility.
A post-war French report contained a note from Bruins which summarized Anna’s fate:
“[Anna] a été fusillée avec deux autres femmes derrière le jardin de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Bailleul vers 9 heures 30 du matin.
Les trois fusiliers marocains sous le commandement d’un adjutant marocain par ordre du Capitaine de Faultcompré [elsewhere spelled Faucompret] emmenant sous escorte 108 prisonniers civils de guerre en vue de leur transfert du fort de Seclin sur Dunkerque via Lille.
… [elle a été] inhumée dans une fosse commune par les autres prisonniers derrière le jardin”.
“[Anna] was executed by firing squad with two other women behind the garden of the Hôtel-Dieu in Bailleul around 9:30 in the morning.
The three Moroccan riflemen, under the command of a Moroccan adjutant by order of Captain de Faultcompré, had under escort 108 civilian prisoners of war for the purpose of their transfer from the Fort of Seclin to Dunkirk via Lille.
… [she was] buried in a mass grave by the other prisoners behind the garden.”
The other prisoners, and their escort, managed to make it to Dunkirk, where they were presumably evacuated. The prisoners who had witnessed her execution would have spread the story amongst the other detainees. The French captain may even have filed a report with the Allies in Dunkirk. Bruins would learn of her fate soon enough.
Tracing Anna
Despite all odds, Bruins had made it safely to England, but only arrived at Camp 020 on 10 August 1940. Where he was from late May to early August is unknown. One can presume that there was a fair bit of chaos after the evacuation of Dunkirk, and perhaps he ended up in a regular prisoner of war camp, or even in a Dutch refugee camp. From Camp 020, Bruins was sent to Camp 001 (The Oratory School) on 19 September 1940. From there, he was sent to the Isle of Man, where he spent the rest of the war.
At what point Bruins learned of his wife’s fate is not clear. One report suggests he learned of her death in July 1940, while another suggests he only learned of it after September 1940. With little to occupy him in the internment camps, he took to writing letters in search of more information.
On 9 January 1944, Bruins sent a letter to the Police Commissioner in Bailleul, outlining the circumstances around his wife’s execution. He requested a formal death certificate, as well as a copy of any tombstone that marked her grave. He noted that Anna’s body would be easily distinguishable from the other two women, she being the youngest and leanest of the three. She only weighed 45 kilograms, was of Malayan race, had a different nose, straight black hair and slender bones.
On 19 December 1945, Police Inspecteur Marcel Decock sent a report about Anna to the Police Commissioner. Decock noted that according to the information gathered, a woman who could not be identified and whose description seemed to match that given by Bruins was buried in the Bailleul cemetery in a grave marked “No. 2”. Two other women, who died in the same circumstances, were buried under “No. 1” and “No. 3”.
Decock noted that shortly after the execution on 27 May 1940, the bodies had been exhumed from their communal grave on the hospital grounds. The bodies had no identity documents or personal papers, and it was not possible to identify them. Decock speculated that Anna’s identity documents had either been seized by the security agents in Lille upon her arrest, or had been taken from her by Captain de Faultcompré prior to her execution. Nevertheless, all wedding bands and rings were removed from the bodies and deposited at the civil registry office of the Bailleul town hall.
Subsequently, Decock stated that the German police services carried out an inquiry about the three women, the purpose of which remained unknown. They were particularly interested in the “Japanese” woman, and, in exchange for a receipt, took all of the personal items held by the civil registry office.
While the French authorities attempted to establish what had happened to Anna, Bruins was pursuing his own battles with officialdom. Some concerned his wife and the circumstances of her death; others were considerably more mundane.
Letters and Grievances
Bruins seems to have been a man who felt hard done by. One document noted that in the internment camps “he was a spreader of despondency and lies”. He wrote multiple letters to the Dutch authorities complaining that he had no identity papers. He requested money with which to buy clothing. In another letter, he argued that his arrest on 12 May 1940 was illegal because the French Sûreté arrested him on Belgian soil, without Belgian authorities present. Receiving no reply, he wrote to Queen Wilhelmina, the head of the Dutch government-in-exile, seeking her assistance! One of his letters was accompanied by a cover letter from the commandant at the Oratory School who noted that: “[Bruins] has confessed to his activities for Germany and is a man who in my opinion would do anything for money and is not to be trusted”.
Finally, on 23 July 1945, Bruins was shipped back to Holland aboard the SS Batavier. He was in and out of prison while the Dutch authorities investigated his activities during the war. During these investigations, his financial assets were frozen and he was placed under the oversight of a guardianship. At one point, upon entering prison, Bruins surrendered his personal possessions: his watch, wedding ring and f 2.81 in cash. While his watch and wedding ring were safely held for Bruins, the cash had been sent to the guardian organization to cover their fees.
Ultimately the Dutch authorities decided not to continue with their prosecution of Bruins. He was released from prison and his guardianship was cancelled, but Bruins felt extremely mistreated. He wrote dozens of letters complaining about the guardianship and the mandatory guardian fee that had been charged to him. He also wrote numerous letters demanding the return of the f 2.81. Letters flew between the prison, the bank, the guardianship organization and Bruins. One letter from the guardianship organization to the bank noted that: “It concerns a person of age, who will not rest till the f 2.81 has been returned, even if he has to request an audience with the Minister. He has no other pastimes and spends all his time on his hobby: the return of the f 2.81, where the amount is not important but the return is.”
In the end, Bruins succeeded, and 10 years later, he received the f 2.81 back. He had likely spent far more than that on paper and postage; but for Bruins, the unfairness of it all had rankled and he would not let it go. He appears, from the surviving correspondence, to have been persistent and highly legalistic.
He was less successful with more serious requests. While he had succeeded in getting Anna’s death officially recognized in 1948, his request that her body be exhumed and moved to the Netherlands was refused. Similarly, his request for financial compensation for his wife’s “murder” was denied.
In December 1959, Bruins moved in with his future third wife, Melania Francisca Hubertina van Laarhoven, in Utrecht. They were finally married six years later, on 9 December 1965. The marriage was short-lived, and Bruins passed away on 13 January 1966 in Utrecht at the age of 86.
But Bruins was not the only one who would seek answers about Anna’s death. Sixty years after Bruins died, Ivar B. has discovered dossiers in the Dutch and French archives that reveal disturbing new details about the circumstances surrounding Anna’s execution.
A Damning Dossier
In February 1947, French authorities conducted a judicial inquiry into the events surrounding the evacuation of Fort Seclin. Captain Faultcompré was under investigation for voluntary homicide and misappropriation of funds/possessions. As part of the investigation, the police interviewed several witnesses, including Lucien Gevrez, the mayor of the city of Onnaing, who had been among the prisoners evacuated towards Dunkirk in May 1940.
Gevrez was assigned to Group 24, under the command of Captain Faultcompré and, on 20 May 1940, the group left Fort Seclin and spent the night in Marquillies, where they were housed in a school. The group spent the next six nights in Marquillies, and it was during this time that summary executions began to take place. One young man was taken away and shot after getting into a dispute with a French corporal.
On the morning of 26 May, the prisoners gathered in the courtyard of the school in preparation for their departure. Captain Faultcompré called forward a disabled prisoner who had made the first part of the journey in a truck. Two other men were also invited to ride in the truck. All three were taken away by Faultcompré and were never seen again. An Algerian soldier later told the prisoners that the three men had been shot.
The group departed Marquillies and marched at a brisk pace for Bailleul. Another prisoner was executed along the way, for failing to keep up with the column. The group stayed overnight at the mental asylum on the outskirts of the city. The next morning, Gevrez and nine other prisoners were ordered to dig a large grave outside the asylum grounds, ostensibly for deceased asylum patients. While they were digging, Gevrez heard women screaming, followed by gunshots.
The prisoners were ordered to retrieve the bodies of three women from the asylum courtyard and bury them. Gevrez remembered one of the women particularly clearly because of what he described as her Asian features. The prisoners had nicknamed her “the Japanese woman.” He estimated that she was about twenty-five years old and said that all three women had severe head wounds and were almost unrecognizable. Gevrez’s description almost certainly refers to the same unidentified woman whom the 1945 investigation associated with Anna.
The group continued their journey to Dunkirk and, just as they were entering the city, another tragedy took place. The prisoners had been taking turns carrying an elderly German woman across the dunes, but were unable to carry her any farther. She was placed on the sidewalk and Faultcompré ordered her to be shot. The woman’s daughter begged for her mother’s life, but in vain. The daughter was shot, and then her mother.
Death came quickly on the desperate march to Dunkirk. And the reasons did not always make sense. An argument with a French corporal. Accepting a ride. Falling behind the marching column. Unable to walk any farther. And, for Anna, something as simple as possessing a small compact with a mirror. An innocuous object, but one that the guards apparently believed could be used to signal the Germans. In the chaos of the French retreat, it took very little to become a target.
Survival and Silence
The fates of Bruins and Anna stand in stark contrast. While their arrest and interrogation followed the same path, their stories diverged en route to Dunkirk. Anna vanished into a mass grave behind a hospital garden. Her papers were stripped, her identity erased, her life reduced to a few documents in a French dossier. Bruins, by contrast, survived the war, survived internment, survived prosecution—and spent the next two decades fighting over small sums of money and perceived injustices.
The post-war investigations restored at least part of Anna’s story. The unidentified “Japanese woman” in grave No. 2 had a name. She was Anna Lilian von Vaupel-Klein, a 31-year-old Dutch woman who had grown up in Holland, loved her cats, and only weeks before her arrest had written happily to her brother about their new home in De Panne. She was not a German spy, but a woman whose fate had become entangled with the activities of her husband. Ironic then, that she paid the ultimate price, while he survived.
History did not treat them equally. Whether it should have is another question entirely.