Joachim Simon was known as Shushu. His mother died when he was a year old, and he was raised mainly by an aunt in Frankfurt am Main. In 1937 he joined the organization of Palestine Pioneers. He was caught during the Reichskristallnacht in November 1938 and imprisoned at Buchenwald. After he was released, he left for the Netherlands, where he joined the national leadership of the Palestine Pioneers and helped run the Loosdrechtse Rade youth chapter at Loosdrecht.
He worked with the Westerweel group to find escape routes to Spain and organized the escapes. On one of these trips, he was caught by the Nazis at the Dutch-Belgian border in January 1943. He was held at the house of detention in Breda, where he committed suicide on 27 January 1943.
In 1947 the surviving Palestine Pioneers planted the Westerweel Forest on Mount Ephraim in the Galilee in what was Palestine at the time. There is a monument bearing the names of the Palestine Pioneers killed during the war. Joachim Simon's name appears on this monument.
NIOD, Erelijst Verzet en Koopvaardij, database made by J.W. de Leeuw;
B. Braber, Zelfs als wij zullen verliezen. Joden in verzet en illegaliteit in Nederland 1940-1945 (Amsterdam, 1990) 84-86
F. van der Straaten, Om nooit te vergeten. Herinneringen en belevenissen aan/van Palestina-Pioniers in Nederland gedrurende de oorlogsjaren 1939-1945 (Mijnsheerenland s.a.) 117, 132, 149;
This person is commemorated on a memorial in Loosdrecht. More information on this memorial can be found (in Dutch) on the website of the Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 mei.
Biography