Titus Herman Butenhuis & Mama's Escape

Titus Herman Butenhuis ( Sleevwijk, September 27, 1892-Naarden, March 27, 1964) joined the NSB in January 1933. He held various positions in the NSB. Butenhuis was a Dutch NSB Mayor.

Through our friend Arie Broers, the Resistance recruited Mama as a writer/editor for an underground resistance newspaper in Schagen, Holland. That was one of those little secret newspapers, published from basements and personal closets, that helped the embittered Dutch keep up their morale through the darkest times. Mama was an intelligent woman with a facility for the written word. And best of all, she could type! In this agricultural region -those few skilled typists would have already been usurped early on by the Nazi bureaucracy - Mama's typing skills alone had extraordinary value for the Resistance.

Just now, Mama was preparing to publish an exposé on the Mayor of Schagen and his brutal misuse of power for personal gain. A prominent and long-standing Fascist, Mayor Titus Buitenhuis, was appointed by the Nazis. He became notorious for using his police and the "legal" system to extort wealth from the local people. He was personally appropriating property left behind by deported Dutch Jews and moving it abroad for safekeeping.

Somehow, it was later said to be through the confidence of a local priest —the mayor discovered the underground newsletter's location, and he heard about the forthcoming article decrying his abuses. That dreary Tuesday afternoon, Mama got a telephone call.

By what miraculous stroke of luck our friend Frans, a Knokploeg officer had gotten wind of the Mayor's plan, I can't be sure. What I do know is, that phone call saved Mama's life. It was a lovely birthday gift. Frans Feld was on the line, urging her to get out of the office at once.

That night, Frans moved Mama to live with Kees Broers in Benningbroek, where she had to take a slight demotion in rank. Instead of a brave underground journalist, she would henceforth be a laundress.

Mama's reprieve from fate was a miracle. She was saved from from another harrowing episode before the sunshine returned. It was February 1945. I remember airplanes and missiles, night and day, coming from all directions. From mobile trucks and railroad cars to the left and right of us in northern Holland, the V2 rockets would rise right up out of the earth's atmosphere in a gentle arc .