Boy Ecury

Boy Ecury was a young man from the Caribbean island of Aruba, in the Dutch Antilles. He was born in the capital Oranjestad in April 1922. His given name was Segundo Jorge Adelberto Ecury. But he went by the nickname Boy and it is by that name that he is remembered.

Boy came from a large wealthy family and was one of 13 siblings. He had a lot of energy and rebellious streak and at the age of 15, his despairing parents decided to send him and his brother Nicky away to be schooled overseas. After a brief stint at a military academy in Puerto Rico the two brothers were then sent to live in the Netherlands.

Boy graduated with a diploma in commerce from the Brother of St. Louis School in Oudenbosch, and he and Nicky did a lot of traveling around the Netherlands. They were living there when World War II started in 1939 and witnessed first hand the Nazi invasion in 1940. They also saw the destruction of cities like Rotterdam.

While in the Dutch city of Tilburg, Boy became friends with another young man Luis de Lannoy. Luis was also from the Antilles and was a student and part of an underground resistance group in the city. The group carried out sabotage operations, planting bombs on German trucks and roads. Members of the underground movements also went out of their way to help injured allied troops and civilians who needed help.

Boy sometimes went along and helped out on covert operations and later became a member of the Resistance Council in Oisterwijk. Like his resistance colleagues, Boy had to live a life in hiding, and lived in various places around The Netherlands, working on a number of dangerous missions.

But some members were not as honorable as others, and betrayed their colleagues. Many were captured by the Nazis, including Luis who was arrested, imprisoned and tortured in Utrecht. Boy tried, but was unsuccessful in his attempts to free his friend. However, Luis later managed to escape.

On 5 November 1944, Boy was arrested and taken to Scheveningen prison. He had also been betrayed. He was interrogated and tortured but refused to betray his friends. On the following day he was executed by a German firing squad. He was 22 years old.

His role in the war is proudly remembered in his birth town Oranjestad. His father brought his son's body back from The Netherlands and in 1947 he was given a funeral with military honors. Two years later a statue of the local hero was erected in the town and still stands today. He is also the subject of an exhibition in the town's war museum and his former family home houses the Archaeological Museum. Forty years after his death Boy was posthumously honored by the Dutch government and awarded a Resistance Heroes Commemorative Cross.

Ted Schouten, Boy's nephew is largely responsible for bringing his uncle's story to a wider audience. Ted has done extensive research and written a book and made a TV documentary about him. He also collaborated on the 2003 award winning film Boy Ecury.