Dutch resistance
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized as non-violent. The primary organizers were the Communist Party, churches, and independent groups. Over 300,000 people were hidden from German authorities in the autumn of 1944 by 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers. These activities were tolerated knowingly by some one million people, including a few individuals among German occupiers and military.
The Dutch resistance developed relatively slowly, but the February strike of 1941 (which involved random police harassment and the deportation of over 400 Jews) greatly stimulated resistance. The first to organize themselves were the Dutch communists, who set up a cell-system immediately. Some other very amateurish groups also emerged, notably, De Geuzen, set up by Bernardus IJzerdraat, as well as some military-styled groups, such as the Order Service (Dutch: Ordedienst). Most had great trouble surviving betrayal in the first two years of the war.
Dutch counterintelligence, domestic sabotage, and communications networks eventually provided key support to Allied forces, beginning in 1944 and continuing until the Netherlands was fully liberated. Of the Jewish population, 105,000 out of 140,000 were murdered in the Holocaust, most of whom were murdered in Nazi death camps. A number of resistance groups specialized in saving Jewish children The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust estimates that 215–500 Dutch Romanis were killed by the Nazis, with the higher figure estimated as almost the entire pre-war population of Dutch Romanis.
Main figures in the Dutch resistance
- Aart Alblas, Royal Netherlands Navy officer
- Willem Arondeus, resistance member in Amsterdam, bombed the Amsterdam Public Records Office in 1943
- Frieda Belinfante, member who helped organize and execute the bombing of the Amsterdam Public Records Office in 1943
- Carolina Bunjes, Jewish communist that sheltered Jews in Scheveningen from the Gestapo and hid weapons for the resistance in Friesland
- Christiaan Boers
- Corrie ten Boom, Christian resistance organizer
- Esmée van Eeghen, active in Leeuwarden
- Diet Eman, Christian resistance member, author of Things We Couldn't Say
- Jack van der Geest
- Jan Gies, husband of Miep Gies and her fellow helper who hid and cared for Anne Frank, her family, and the others in hiding with them
- Jan van Gilse, composer and conductor and resistance member in Amsterdam
- Frans Goedhart, founder of Het Parool<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Daniël Goulooze, Jewish construction worker, communist and Soviet agent
- Karl Gröger, executed for his role in carrying out the bombing of the Amsterdam Public Records Office in 1943
- Paul de Groot, Jewish communist leader
- Frits van Hall, sculptor executed for his role in the Dutch resistance in 1945
- Suzy van Hall, dancer who was sent to Dachau concentration camp
- Walraven van Hall, 'banker of the resistance', considered one of the leading figures in the Dutch resistance
- Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema; student and a secret agent
- Jan van Hoof
- Johannes de Jong, Archbishop of Utrecht
- Ernst de Jonge, lawyer and Olympic rower
- Gerrit Kastein, surgeon and communist activist in CS 6
- Anton de Kom, Afro-Dutch communist resistance leader
- Aart Gerardus Lekskes
- Johan Limpers, sculptor and resistance member
- George Maduro, a Jewish officer
- Lau Mazirel, lawyer who helped plan the bombing of the Amsterdam Public Records Office in 1943
- Geertruida Middendorp
- Martinus Nijhoff, poet who helped plan the bombing of the Amsterdam Public Records Office in 1943
- Allard Oosterhuis, family doctor; organizer of escape routes to Sweden and Switzerland
- Mona Louise Parsons
- Jaap Penraat
- Henri Pieck
- Henriëtte Pimentel (1876–1943), smuggled hundreds of Jewish children out of her crèche
- Joannes Cassianus Pompe, pathologist executed for sabotage
- Gerard Reeskamp
- Father Raskin, who operated under the codename Leopold Vindictive 200 and was beheaded by the Gestapo on 18 October 1943
- Willem Sandberg, curator at the Stedelijk Museum who helped plan the bombing of the Amsterdam Public Records Office in 1943
- Hannie Schaft, "the girl with the red hair", communist resistance assassination agent
- Pierre Schunck of the Valkenburg resistance
- Pieter Meindert Schreuder, a resistance leader in Groningen
- Henk Sneevliet, Marxist resistance leader
- Han Stijkel, an armed resistance leader in The Hague, bombed the Amsterdam Public Records Office
- Bram van der Stok
- Tina Strobos, a medical student who smuggled resistance supplies and hid Jewish refugees in her house
- Jacoba van Tongeren, the female leader of Group 2000
- Gerrit van der Veen, sculptor and resistance leader in Amsterdam, bombed the Amsterdam Public Records Office in 1943
- Koos Vorrink, socialist politician and resistance leader
- Gerben Wagenaar, Communist resistance leader
- Joop Westerweel, a schoolteacher and Christian anarchist, leader of the Westerweel Group resistance group
- Bernardus IJzerdraat, one of the first to resist
See also
- Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten
- Dutch underground press
- Englandspiel
- Netherlands in World War II
- Resistance during World War II
- Verzetsmuseum