Amsterdam – Verzetsmuseum

For our last day together in Amsterdam (pop 946,447 in 2026), the family makes another bold choice – to visit the Verzetsmuseum (Gebouw Plancius, Nicolaas Vos, 1874-76; reuse 1998-99), in the Plantage neighborhood.

The Verzetsmuseum curation focuses on the personal stories of those involved in the Dutch Resistance, with lots of ephemera and small belongings. Along with our photos, we include some of the Museum's text, taken from the signage, below (the Museum's excellent timeline can be found here):

Anton Mussert (1894- 1946)

Anton Mussert admired Hitler. He was the leader of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB), which was founded in 1931. "Whoever does not belong amongst our people, must go. From the Chinese to the Jews", he said in a speech in 1939. Many Dutch people detested the NSB.

Anton welcomed the German Nazis enthusiastically. He expected to gain power. Thousands of new members joined him. But the occupers understood that close cooperation with the much-hated NSB would not help to entice the Dutch population to embrace national socialism. NSB members did secure high positians, but Anton Mussert failed to gain any real power.

From January 1942, the NSB was the only party permitted in the Netherlands. During the occupation, the NSB had nearly 100,000 members at its peak.

Henri Winkelman (1876 - 1952)

The Dutch royal family is referred to as the House of Orange. Those who showed that they were pro-Orange would turn against the occupiers. Prince Bernhard's birthday was on 29 June 1940. People took to the streets all across the Netherlands, many of them wearing just like Bernhard a white carnation flower pinned to their chest.

There was a congratulations logbook at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague. A stream of people laid flowers upon flowers. The commander-in-chief of the recently defeated Dutch army, General Winkelman, also signed his name in the book. The crowd clapped and sang the Dutch national anthem. The occupiers intervened and the square was cleared out, Winkelman was sent to Germany as a prisoner of war.

Winkelman remained imprisoned for the duration of the occupation. He would go on to survive the war.

After this 'Carnation Day', the German occupiers banned public use of royal names and portraits, Street names were later changed.

Ernst Sillem (1923 - 2020)

The 17-year-old Ernst Sillem from Baarn felt that most Dutch people were not doing enough to resist the German occupiers. "Something must be done!" he thought. One evening in late January 1941, he quietly climbed out of his bedroom window with a flashlight, paint and a brush. He walked in the dark to his school, where he broke a window and crawled inside, In the gleam of the flashlight, he painted these messages on the walls: "Out, Krauts" and "Don't be passively anti-German, take action!!!!"

The police launched an investigation, but the perpetrator was never found. The story of the act spread throughout the Netherlands.

Ernst was later arrested following a failed attempt to go to England. He would survive multiple concentration.camps

Coba Veltman (1901-1976)

Single mother Coba Veltman was there when the banned communist party called on Amsterdam residents to strike against the violent raid on Jews. Pamphlets needed to be made. Coba, like several others, was eager to help: "I went straight to work."

She sat at home and typed on this typewriter: "Demand the immediate release of the arrested Jews" and "Be brave!" She handed out the pamphlets in the streets. Tens of thousands of people joined the strike.

Coba was arrested the next day. She was sentenced to six months in prison, but was not released afterwards. Instead, she was imprisoned at the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. Coba's two children lived with her sister all that time.

After the liberation, Coba was reunited with her children.

The communist party, which was banned in 1940, immediately continued to operate illegally and thus became the first organised resistance group in the Netherlands.

Jacoba Blom-Schuh (1901 - 1946)

Charity also came under German control: the Winter Aid. When a Winter Aid collector came to The Hague resident Jacoba Blom-Schuh's door, Jacoba was defiant and said: "The proceeds from Winter Aid go to the Germans and NSB members, and they are a pack of thieves just like Adolf Hitler. I won't give to Winter Aid until our queen has returned."

The collector filed a report. Jacoba was sent to prison for two months, It didn't make her any less stubborn: when the guards ordered her to darn some stockings, she sewed them shut, supposedly out of ignorance, She incorporated her prison experiences into these embroidery pieces,

The Winter Aid was a failure. Most Dutch people did not donate any money,

Albert Blom (1879 - 1952)

In early 1942, Japan - an ally of Germany - attacked the Dutch colony of the Dutch East Indies. This news came as a shock to the Netherlands. The Japanese have landed in three places on Java", Albert Blom from Jmuiden wrote in his diary on 2 March 1942.

He was still hopeful on 4 March: "Heard that the Dutch on Java are putting up quite a resistance, Bravo, boys. Mow down as many as you can" Five days later, however, he read that the Dutch East Indies had been occupied by Japan. Albert was deeply shocked. "Our Indies are lost", he wrote, "Now we have lost everything.."

The Netherlands was home to tens of thousands of people of mixed Dutch-Indonesian descent: so-called Indos. Many white Dutch people also had family and friends in Indonesia. The occupation of the Netherlands and Indonesia made contact between the twe countries nearly impossible.

Arie Addicks (1916 - 1941)

In 1940, Amsterdam resident Arie Addicks and his friends began distributing an illegal newsletter that would grow into an important resistance newspaper: Het Parool,

In the summer of 1941, two detectives raided his home. A fight broke out in which Arie's father was fatally struck by a police bullet. Arie escaped, but not for long, He was arrested and sentenced to death.

On the back of a prison regulation sheet, Arie wrote that he hoped the Germans would let him live: "… for me, [my life is) absolutely everything. My mother won't be able to survive my death." But on 8 October, posters were put up in the city: Arie has been shot dead, 25 years old.

Gerrit van der Veen (1902 - 1944)

Gerrit van der Veen wanted to help those being persecuted:

Jews and members of the resistance who were being hunted by the Germans. As a sculptor, he was good with his hands - here, you can see his tools and a small sculpture he made. Gerrit decided to forge documents.

Together with friends, he founded the 'Central Office for Identity Cards' in June 1942, While the group forged all manner of documents, they turned out a particularly large number of identity cards.

These boxes contain hundreds of fake municipal stamps. And if forgery wasn't dangerous enough on its own, Gerrit - father of two daughters- decided to commit armed robbery as well. He knows he could be sentenced to death, "'d rather have my children say, we had a courageous father once than 'we still have a father, but he was a coward!"

Gerrit was arrested following a failed attempt te help friends from the resistance escape from the Weteringsehans prisen in Ameterdam and was executed on 10 June 1944.

Piet Landweer (1900 - 1944)

Piet Landweer, head of the Amsterdam Registry Office, was eager to help Jews. He advised them to report their identity cards as lost, after which they were issued new ones without the required I:

A Jewish 17-year old named Marga Grunberg received a false identity card in this way as well. Marga had fled to the Netherlands from Germany in 1934, Piet and Marga began to work together. Marga's job was to distribute forged documents, which she hid in this bag.

Piet and the colleagues helping him became more ingenious. For example, they used the personal details of deceased Amsterdam residents to create new forged identity cards, in the wake of the March 1943 attack on the Registry Office, it all became a bit easier: the chaos provided more opportunities to tweak documents.

Piet Landweer was arrested and executed along with five colleagues in the summer of 1944, Marga survived the war.

Willem Arondéus (1894 - 1943)

As a gay artist, Willem Arondéus had always felt like an outsider.

But during the occupation, he finally felt he could make a difference.

Together with friends, Willem concocted a plan to destroy the Amsterdam Registry Office, The Registry Office contained the files used to check whether a person's identity card was genuine or false.

For their plan, the group needed a map of the building, the guards' schedule, explosives and police uniforms to disguise themselves. It took five months to prepare, On 27 March 1943, they successfully carried out the attack. The spectacular action was the talk of the Netherlands! Yet not every personal index card was destroyed. And the attack came too late for the many Jews who had already been deported.

Someone betrayed them, and Willem and 11 other co-conspirators were arrested and shot, A friend of Willem's later said that, shortly before his execution, he asked her te tell the world that homesexuals are not weak.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 German gay people were imprisened in concentration camps, in the Netherlands, the persecutien of homosexuals was limited, Only one Dutch man is known to have been sent to a camp for being gay.

Jacques van de Kar (1917-2008)

The 25-year-old Jewish Jacques van de Kar found work with the Jewish Council: "I was so happy that I didn't have to report because of that job. I had no money to go into hiding" He was given this armband.

Among other places, Jacques worked at the Hollandse Schouwburg theatre in Amsterdam, where lews were held before being deported. He hid some people on a mezzanine so they could escape. He also gave out train keys, as seen here, so that people could jump out of the moving train. "But", he would later recount, "the problem remained: where should they go? There were so few hiding places!"

At the end of 1943, Jacques managed to go into hiding after all. He went on to survive the war.

Nora Susan-Levie (1906 - 1943)

"There's a transport every Monday night, and those nights are awfu!", wrote 36-year-old Nora Susan-Levie at the Westerbork fransit camp.She was there with her two children. From Westerbork, the Dutch Jews were sent to camps in Eastern Europe. No one knew exactly what awaited them, but the fear was great.

The names on the transport list were only annonced at the last minute. "This often causes harrowing scenes", Nora wrote. In November 1943, Nora and her children were on the list: the train took them to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.

Of the 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands, 107,000 were deported fo concentration and extermination camps, mostly via Westerbork: approx. 102.000 were murdered there.

Frederik Loep (1906 - 1943)

The items in this display case were in Frederik Loep's pockets at the time of his arrest. He was a plant engineer at the Stork machinery factory, The German occupers checked the company during the April-May strikes, and Frederik was absent from work. He was later arrested, While being interrogated, Frederik said that while he sympathised with the strikers, he just happened to have taken the day off. He made an official request and all.

But that didn't matter to the Germans: someone in a high position at Stork (where the strike had begun) needed to die as a deterrent to others, On 4 May 1943, Frederik was shot and buried in an undisclosed location, His family was given this envelope with the contents of his pockets,

Eighty people were arrested, shot to death and given secret burials as a result of the April-May strikes, Fifty of those bodies, including Frederik's, were never found.

Loes van Overeem (1907 - 1980)

As a Red Cross volunteer, Loes van Overeem hoped to help detainees in the Dutch camps.

To that end, is it all right to negotiate with the enemy? And Is there any point in doing so? 'No', said her colleagues al the Red Cross. But Loes persevered.

Thanks to her powers of persuasion, she managed to gain permission from high-ranking Nazis to negotiate with camp officials on behalf of the Red Cross, She was granted access to the concentration camp in Vught. Her visits boosted morale among the detainees and she managed to improve the conditions in the camp. In July 1943, Loes went to Camp Amersfoort to deliver food parcels, But the camp commandant Karl Berg sent her away.

After the war, Loes was both praised and criticised for her dealings with the occupying regime.

Karl Berg (1907 - 1949)

When Bed Cross volunteer Loes yan Overcem arrived at Camp Amerstport with food parcels in tow, the 36 yedr-old Karl Berg had been commandant of the camp for only a few months. Together with Joseph Kotalla, he instituted a reign of terror Many detainees were members of the resistance, and there were also Jews, hostages and Jehovah's Witnesses in the camp.

Karl did not want any outside interference. "Unlike prisoners of war, political detainees are not entitled to any care whatsoever", he said. Four times he sent Loes away, but she kept trying. Finally, he gave in - probably thanks to her contacts among high-ranking Nazi officials - and in the autumn of 1943, Loes received permission to deliver her food parcels to the detainees.

With liberation imminent, Karl turned the camp over to Loes on 19 April 1945, Karl was arrested after the occupation ended. He was sentenced to death and was shot in 1949.

Aad Ammerlaan (1924 - 2015)

In the spring of 1943, 19-year-old Aad Ammerlaan was notified that he must report to work in Germany. First, however, he had to pass a physical: "There was no way out of it. The NSB doctor's assessment was that if you had a normal head and arms and legs, you were fit for work in Germany", Aad wrote in his journal. He was unable to secure an exemption. Although the resistance encouraged people to go into hiding, he was hesitant and unsure of how to do so.

Aad found himself in a German factory near the Swiss border.

He was disgruntled that "everything was intended for those damn Krauts" Together with two friends, he managed to escape and make his way to Switzerland.

Between 500,000 and 630,000 Dutch people were forced into labour for Nazi Germany, Around 30,000 of those workers died, while approximately 300,000 men went into hiding.

Herman Sterrenburg (1921 - 2006)

"I didn't hesitate, but if no one had asked me, I probably wouldn't have ended up in the resistance", says Herman Sterrenburg. He began working for the espionage group Albrecht.

As a carpenter, he did odd jobs for the occupying Germans - sometimes on military sites. This enabled him to collect information on the German positions, which he incorporated into detailed maps.

The corresponding reports were then typed by his brother-in-law, "because", Herman said: "I wasn't very good at that." Secret agents then smuggled the maps and reports to England on microfilm. While Herman did most of this dangerous work during the day, he sometimes went out at night with the help of these night-visien binoculars.

Herman never ran inte trouble and survived the war.

Co Dankaart (1912 - 1991)

The display case contains a poison-filled capsule. Resistance member Co Dankaart kept one on his person at all times: he would rather have died than be tortured into giving up others. He was arrested in July 1943, and was shot in the process. The holes are visible in his shirt.

On the way to prison, Co surreptitiously popped the poison capsule into his mouth. Co narrates: "The German guard swung his rubber baton and said: 'So, ape, don't you have a name? We'll beat one out of you, and he started to work me over."

Co swallowed the pill - but unfortunately, he was supposed to bite it in half first, Despite a severe beating, Co gave his captors no names other than his own. Finally he was allowed to go to a hospital, where he was rescued by his friends from the resistance.

Co went inte hiding, continued to work for the resistance and ultimately survived the war.

Jan Brasser (1908 - 1991)

Jan Brasser had been carrying out armed resistance missions for years when his group joined the army of the Dutch resistance - the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (Interior Forces) - in 1944. "Suddenly I was dealing with a whole group of strangers. They were suspicious of us because we were communists." Jan was made a commander nevertheless.

In autumn 1944, he heard the coded message "Sjaan's sister died" on Radio Orange. This told him that an Allied plane would be dropping containers of guns. Jan and his men hurried to the agreed-upon pasture. There, they used coloured lamps to indicate the drop field. The containers thudded to the ground. The men loaded them up and drove back, but then: "Rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat... an English plane trained its machine gun on us! We hid at the bottom of the dike" Then the aircraft disappeared again and the men secured the weapons.

The Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten was made up of the Landelijke Knokploegen (which included many Christians), the Raad van Verzet (with many communists) and the Ordedienst (mostly former members of the military, Despite their mutual suspicion, the groups sometimes cooperated effectively.

Nol Escher (1931 - 2009)

"I'll never forget this as long as I live!! That's how awful it was", wrote Nol Escher, a 13-year-old boy in Amsterdam, in his journal. On his way to school, he passed the spot where 30 people had just been shot as retaliation for the death of an SS officer. The bodies were left lying in the street as a warning. In this photo, you can see two men hastily draping a Dutch flag on that location.

Nol was afraid: was his father one of the victims? He would have walked past that spot on his way to work. Nol ran to where his father worked, but he was nowhere to be seen, "I screamed in terror and collapsed on the ground!" But then, his father appeared! Nol threw his arms around his father's neck.

Frans Nieuwenhuis (1934)

"You can go to the farmers. Life will be good for you there, is what 11-year-old Frans Nieuwenhuis mother told him. There was practically no food left in The Hague, so Frans and his younger brother were sent to Friesland, in the north of the Netherlands.

Everything was very different there and Frans couldn't understand the language. He wrote to his parents: "Together with your father and mother is always the best place to be, even if there's no food." And he felt guilty, too: "I feel like I'm here stuffing my face white you two are starving to death" Slowly, however, Frans began to get used to his new life, His foster parents were kind people and he quickly regained his strength: I weighed 64 pounds and I'm already 69 pounds, 2,5 ounces, That's some progress, huh?"

During a massive rescue operation in the first few months of 1945, around 40,000 malnourished children from the cities were evacuated to the countryside.

Toby Vos (1918 - 2019)

There was virtually nothing left to eat in Amsterdam. In late December 1944, Toby Vos set off into the countryside on foot to trade possessions for food. Everywhere she went, she was turned away.

So many people came to their doors that the farmers were unable to help them all. At the sixteenth farm, Toby felt a glimmer of hope: she saw a freshly-slaughtered pig hanging there. When she knocked, the door was opened - and immediately slammed shut again. "I screamed at the residents through the closed door. Told them lots of people were dying in the streets and I hadn't come here on a whim. No one answered me, Tears were streaming down my face as I walked past the pig"

In the final months of the war, some 50,000 people set out on a quest to find food each day, During the Dutch famine known as the 'Hunger Winter, over 20,000 people in the western Netherlands died from hunger, cold and disease.