Father Jan de Vries

Jan de Vries (Bredevoort, March 21, 1911 – Bafwasende, December 19, 1964) was the son of Johan de Vries, station master of the tram station in Bredevoort, and his wife Aleida Wensink. He served for many years as a Roman Catholic missionary in the Belgian Congo (present-day Zaire), where he was murdered in 1964.

At the age of 12, he left for Bergen op Zoom to attend the Juvenate of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; after completing this education, he took his vows on September 8, 1930. He subsequently studied philosophy in Liesbosch and theology in Hees (Nijmegen). On July 14, 1935, Jan was ordained as a priest.

Missionary in the Belgian Congo

On August 27, 1937, he left for the Belgian Congo, where he became a traveling missionary in the Archdiocese of Stanleyville. There, he traveled through the jungle from village to village, a period he described in the children’s book Waar het oerwoud ruist (Where the Jungle Rustles, 1938). Later, he became the director of several schools in Avakubi, where he conducted a choir, and served as novice master in Bafwasende, where he trained brothers from the Belgian Congo. In his final years, he was a mission superior and parish priest of Lubutu and Batama. In 1960, De Vries returned to Bredevoort to celebrate the silver jubilee of his priesthood.

These film recordings were likely made at that time:

Bafwasende Massacre 1964

In that same year, the Congo gained independence, and a civil war broke out when the Simbas rebelled against the new government. De Vries was on a retreat in Stanleyville but immediately returned to his mission in Batama. There, on October 31, 1964, he was captured and mistreated by the rebels along with four brothers and two sisters. They were among twenty-seven people transported by truck to Bafwasende.

On November 25, the priests were sentenced to death by a kind of military tribunal. On November 27, they were taken to the banks of the Lindi River near the village of Bafwasende. The women who remained behind heard machine-gun fire. The women were eventually liberated by mercenaries on December 19.

The death of Jan de Vries made a profound impact on Bredevoort. That same year, a memorial stone was placed in the local RC church. When his house was demolished a few years later to create access to a newly planned street, the municipality of Aalten decided (presumably in 1969) to name this street Pater Jan de Vriesstraat.