B Bij het St Anthoniuskapelleke

At the St. Antoniuskapelleke in the bend of the Deel on the corner of Boekelseweg.

In our nightmares, you should know, we still often startled and frightened awake sweating: the Hessians are coming! Such a military execution is really not an empty threat. Certainly not as far as the Gemert Commandery is concerned. For our land commander Godfried Huyn of Geleen led a punitive expedition to the Hesse country in 1637 by order of the German emperor. Seventeen towns, forty-seven castles and three hundred villages were burned to the ground. Well, that the Hesseans would one day pay a vengeful return visit was to be expected. Revenge, that was what they were after. On August 23, 1643, Hessian soldiers suddenly appeared in the middle of our village. Lots of cows and horses were taken away and more than thirty Gemert men were killed. Pastor Versantvoirt, bailiff Brouwers and a bunch of other Gemert people:

‛Already in 1641 the Hessians, garrisoned in Kalkar, demanded dues from Gemert and threatened to recover them by rigorous execution. Everything was then done to prepare for the arrival of the Hessians; for four months Gemert was continuously armed and guarded the castle and other places, relying also on the sauvegarde granted to Gemert. Finally in 1643 the Hessians came and beat down or killed about 33 Gemert people, captured others, wounded them, and took beasts, sheep and other livestock.

Pastor Versantvoirt was staying at the castle at the time and remembers that the commander commanded that people should beat the drums and keep watch in three or four rotters.a

Since then, we have disliked the word ‛Hessen' and have been eager to pay our dues to that people faithfully and on time.