Blog Post 7 – Women of the Resistance – July 17, 2026

I would like you to meet Jannetje Johanna Schaft. Known informally as Hannie, she was born in Haarlem in 1920 (which makes her just three years older than my mother, who lived a few miles south of Haarlem, in Scheveningen) and aspired to be a human rights lawyer. While at the university in Amsterdam in 1943, all students were required to sign a pledge of allegiance to the Nazi Reich to continue their studies. Hannie refused, as did 80 percent of the students at that time. Moving back in with her parents, she brought along two fellow Jewish students. 

Hannie began her work with the Dutch Resistance shortly after, stealing ID cards so those in hiding could have false identification. Soon her activities escalated to sabotage and assassinations, targeting Nazi officials, soldiers, collaborators and traitors. Before meeting a target, Hannie would put on mascara, lipstick and style her hair, once quoted as saying “I’ll die clean and beautiful”. She was spotted at one scene and became known as “the girl with the red hair”, which caused her to be placed on the Nazi’s Most Wanted list.

Dying her hair black and wearing thick glasses, she managed to elude capture until March of 1945, when she was arrested at a checkpoint with illegal newspapers. The Nazis did not know who they had until her hair began to grow and the red roots showed. 

As the end of World War II approached, an agreement between the German occupiers and organized resistance organizations was made to halt executions. Despite this agreement, on April 17, 1945 Hannie was taken to the dunes near Bloemendaal, not far from Haarlem to be executed. Her executors were two Dutch men who collaborated with the Nazis. The war ended just three weeks later. Hannie Schaft was only 24 years old.

Hannie Schaft’s body was exhumed shortly after the war, from a field that contained 422 bodies of resistance fighters who were executed. She was the only woman. All 422 remains were reburied in a memorial cemetery nearby. Hannie was posthumously awarded the Dutch Cross of Resistance, one of only 95 thus honored, as well as the Resistance Memorial Cross. General Eisenhower awarded her the Medal of Freedom.

Hannie died more than 81 years ago, yet her story still inspires people to stand up to tyranny. While her acts of resistance brought the war back to her country’s oppressors in an uncompromising way, even the smallest acts of resistance have meaning and provoke us to action. If you want to learn more about Hannie’s brief but powerful life, I recommend the following books:

To Die Beautiful, by Buzzy Jackson (Penguin Random House, 2023)

Three Ordinary Girls, by Tim Brady (Citadel Press, 2021)

Blog Entry 6 – Groep van Beest – July 1, 2026

De Groep Van Beest
No, that’s not a typo (and I know what you are thinking!). Groep is the Dutch word for Group. Van Beest, in a literal translation, means from Beest, as a name. So what we will talk about today is the Group from Beest. Alphons C. van Beest was a career officer in the Netherlands Navy until the German invasion in May of 1940. As the occupation began, the Dutch forces were dismantled and soldiers were sent home; most were unwilling and certainly resentful, perhaps even angry over the German presence. Fons, as he was called, was one of those, and wasted little time in organizing a resistance group. And he had little difficulty in finding people to help in this effort.

What set his group apart from most resistance groups was their focus. Early on, they decided not to engage in sabotage or raids, which they considered pointless and a drop in the ocean. They knew reprisals would certainly follow. The group began mapping out and photographing German positions, as well as preparations for the German invasion of England. To do this, a network of informants and collaborators was built. Access was made through various trade groups, on which the Germans relied to repair and maintain various facilities near Middelburg and in the coastal province of Zeeland.

It is one thing to gather information, but another matter to get that information into the right hands. Van Beest’s contacts included former senior military staff in The Hague with connections to other resistance groups. A network was established where information from many groups throughout the Netherlands was collected and sent to contacts in England. (More on that in a future article.)

Besides Fons, it took a unique group of committed patriots to make this work. Piet Bouwense was a 28-year-old teacher who met Fons, and the two bonded over their distaste of the Germans. Piet’s contacts in the academic world included 22-year-old insurance agent Jan Sturm and his 31-year-old brother Kees Sturm, a plumber by trade. The De Pagter brothers, Gerard and Piet, worked in the family business, which was listed as a carpentry and masonry business. The
construction trades were the perfect cover for accessing German installations.

Another member of the Groep van Beest was Cornelis Mooiman. If you read Night and Fog, you will recognize Kees as one of the main characters in the story of my mother’s family during the war. It is through Kees’ story that I learned of the Groep van Beest. Kees was able to use his connections in The Hague to send the gathered intelligence.

The group functioned well and provided critical information that was likely passed on to Allied forces, until a traitor entered their midst. Another naval officer, by the name of Izak Daane, approached Fons to join the group. Both Fons and Kees knew Izak from their Navy days, so at first all seemed well, though some had misgivings. Kees Mooiman recalled a time on a ship when he overheard Daane discussing NSD matters during a break. (NSD was the Dutch Nazi Party before the war began). Another resistance member followed Daane and witnessed Daane leaving a Gestapo building in Rotterdam, wearing a swastika badge.

By then, it was too late. The SD (Sicherheitsdienst or Security Service, of the German SS) issued orders to round up the group and many were arrested in June, 1942. Fons van Beest was one of the first. However, he was able to escape and went into hiding. He was later shot and killed. Izak Daane also infiltrated another resistance group in Zeeland, and several of those members were arrested.

An order went out to members of the resistance to “dispose of” Izak Daane. He was lured to a remote location under the guise that a cache of weapons was hidden there. He was killed and hastily buried in a shallow grave. Unfortunately, his pockets were not searched, and when he failed to show up at a subsequent meeting, he had told his associates where he would be. Gestapo found his body, as well as papers in his pocket with a list of names from the Groep van Beest.
Several other arrests were made, including my uncle, Kees Mooiman.

A trial was held in Utrecht in May 1943. Forty individuals were tried and 24 were sentenced to death by firing squad, including my Uncle Kees. Later, some of the sentences were commuted to hard labor or concentration camps. Many of those who went to the camps did not survive the war. Only Piet Bouwense, Leen Hoogenboom, Jo Merk, Jan Sturm and Kees Mooiman survived to the end of the war and returned home.

The source for much of this article is a book entitled De Groep van Beest by J. N. Houterman. The book is chock full of details and survivor accounts…but alas, it is in Dutch, and my language skills are sadly lacking. I was able to translate portions using Google Translate, but it too has its limitations. Regardless, the book was a valuable resource in piecing together this part of Dutch history and how it fits into my own story.

Blog Entry 5 – June 17, 2026

The Orange Hotel

In Night and Fog, my uncle Kees was imprisoned for a time in a prison in Scheveningen, after his arrest in Middelburg. Officially called the Polizeigefängnis (police detention), the facility was originally constructed in 1919 to detain petty criminals. During the brief battles when Germany invaded the Netherlands, German prisoners of war, members of the Dutch Nazi Party and German sympathizers were briefly imprisoned there. 

After the Netherlands capitulated in May of 1940, the Nazis took over the prison. Between 1940 and 1945, approximately 25,000 people were held there. The majority of those were charged with resisting the Nazi regime, some for merely “expressing dissatisfaction with the German occupier”, and disobedience. Also included in the prison population were Jews, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Sinti. A rallying expression used by many in the resistance and their supporters was the House of Orange, the family name for the Dutch monarchy. Hence the prison came to be known as the Oranjehotel, or Orange Hotel. Oom Kees (Dutch for uncle) only spent a short time at the Oranjehotel, from August to November, 1943. From there he was transferred to Utrecht for trial and then on to other prisons and labor camps. 

As notorious as the prison is, the area across the street from it is called the Waalsdorpervlakte and is equally infamous. A single wooden door on the north side of the prison wall opens to the street, where prisoners were led across the street to a field in the dunes to be killed by a firing squad. Ironically, my mother’s family had moved from their house near the beach to a house a few blocks from the Oranjehotel. She recalls hearing the fusillades of the executions during the war. I cannot imagine what went through their minds while her brother was imprisoned there. 

Both the building known as the Orange Hotel and the field in the dunes are now designated as important Dutch war memorial sites. A plaque now hangs beside the wooden door with a poem inscribed as follows:

1940 – 1945

REMEMBER THEIR LAST WALK

THROUGH THIS LOW GATE,

THEIR LIVES

GIVEN FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE.

CONTINUE THEIR FIGHT.

The photograph is of the door through which the condemned prisoners walked (from the Wikipedia page). More information can be found at the following links:

Oranjehotel – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

National Monument Oranjehotel | Nationaal Monument Oranjehotel

Blog Entry 4 – March 7, 2026
An Unpleasant History
What does one do when one learns that one’s family may not be full of the heroic figures one
grew up with? How does one cope with the notion that a family member (or perhaps members) may have been “on the wrong side”?

I grew up with the humble belief that I had some pretty big shoes to fill when I learned of my
uncle’s and my father’s exploits in the Dutch Resistance during World War II. While researching for my book Night & Fog, I came upon documents that verified those exploits and took them from the realm of family lore into some cold hard facts. This humbled me even more. Sadly, these revelations came after my mother’s passing and long after my father passed. Nevertheless, I felt proud of my parents, of my extended family, and of my ancestral country.

However, a darker episode emerged during a trip to the Netherlands with my wife Karen in 2014. We stayed with my cousins in northern Holland and took several sightseeing trips. One such trip led us to Camp Westerbork, a notorious transit camp that served as a stopping point for many whose journeys ended in the gas chambers of the concentration camps. It was a somber reminder of wartime atrocities.

Walking from the parking lot to the visitor center, my cousin hung back, unable to continue. Her husband then suggested we go on and they would wait in the car for us. I was puzzled and thought perhaps she wasn’t feeling well, so on we went. Later that day, the explanation by my cousin shocked me. When the war ended, Westerbork became a detention center holding Dutch citizens who were accused of being collaborators with the Nazi occupiers during the war. My cousin, who was only four years old was interred there with her family…which included my paternal grandfather! That episode in her young life was more than half a century ago, but the memories were vivid enough to cause her to be ill.

I remember my father telling me that he had political disagreements with his father during the
war. I did not realize how deep those disagreements were. Subsequent digging revealed entries in the Commissie Beoordeeling officieren bezet gebied (Committee for the Assessment of Officers in Occupied Territory), specially ordering my grandfather to appear before the committee in He probably stayed at Westerbork until that hearing. I have reason to believe that my grandfather was a member of the NDP, the Dutch Nazi Party, which was probably enough to prompt the appearance.

Many collaborators lost their Dutch citizenship, and many were deported. Some stood trial and served sentences, and some were executed. The extent of my grandfather’s involvement is unknown. However, he remained in Holland until he died in 1957. While I have much documentation of both my uncle’s and father’s resistance activities, my grandfather’s past is murkier. Was his treatment lessened because of his son’s patriotism? How active was he in the NDP? Questions remain, of course, and more research is needed.

Stay tuned.

(Photos by the author. Upper is of the upturned rails at Westerbork. Second photo is of the
interior of a typical barracks.)

Blog Entry 3 – January 27, 2026
Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this day, January 27, 1945, the
Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Soviet Army. More than one million people
were exterminated at this camp at the hands of the Nazis. It was the first time many in the world
realized the extent of the horror that occurred at this and other camps.
One million is a huge number, so I celebrate it in the name of one family. Johan and Rebecca
Strauss lived on the same street as my mother’s family in Holland. Rebecca was a few years
older than my mother, and she and her husband had two young children. Mom was friends with
Rebecca, and many in the neighborhood took care of them when the Nazi pogroms made their
lives difficult. The Strauss’s were Jewish.
One day my mom went to visit them after they were moved to a Jewish ghetto in The Hague, but
the house was empty. Mom, on innumerable occasions, wondered what happened to them.
My curiosity got the better of me, and I searched online for Rebecca Strauss-de Rood (her
maiden name). It was a somber entry in the Jewish Monument that ended that search. Johan (age
35), Rebecca (26), son Levie (5 years old) and Hilletje (age 3) were exterminated upon their
arrival at Auschwitz on August 23, 1942.
The use of the word “exterminated” is deliberate. It describes the systematic gathering, transport,
killing and disposal of human beings. Man’s capacity for atrocities like this isn’t limited to the
Nazis. More than a million were slain in what is now Myanmar, and we’ve seen similar killing
fields in the Balkans and Gaza. It seems America is not immune…we cannot forget what
happened to many Native American tribes either.
We cannot forget, and we must be vigilant that history does not repeat itself.

Blog Entry 2 – January 3, 2026
How Downed Pilots Escaped Capture
As I wrap up the publication of Night & Fog, my mind is already focusing on the next story. The adventures of Flying Sergeant Robert Fitzgerald Conroy caught my attention while researching the first book, when I found F/S Conroy’s written account in the British Archives of that fateful mission and being shot down over Holland. That account, labeled as “most secret” describes in remarkable detail his rescue by the Dutch Resistance and subsequent escape into Belgium and beyond. It also defined a connection between Gerald and my father, Bert.

So who were the people that rescued Gerald and hundreds of other aircraft crew members with the misfortune of ending up behind enemy lines? For every allied soldier that made the perilous journey through several countries, dozens of ordinary citizens assisted them along the way. Not only was the journey dangerous for the soldier, but these citizens also placed themselves in harm’s way to help the soldiers. Some were active in the resistance, but many played a more passive role, often simply providing a meal, a place to sleep, or obtaining an important document.

In Night & Fog, Gerald asked Bert to help him get to Spain, but Bert was reluctant to go in that direction, and instead recommended Gerald go to Switzerland. The discussion nagged me and I wondered what Gerald knew, and why did Bert think otherwise? This led to a study of the escape lines that extended from Holland and Belgium to France and beyond. What I found was an incredibly complex and dedicated system of transport, safe houses and trails that wove their way through much of western Europe. Even more remarkable were the people who organized and maintained these escape lines. What is also striking are the connections between the countries, including British Intelligence who often supplied and encouraged the escape lines with money and people.

I started out writing about Gerald’s journey, but the mix of characters that operated the escape lines were certainly as brave and colorful as any of the soldiers they transported to safety. I hope you will join me as I embark on this next project.

Blog Entry 1 – December 28, 2025
How Many Actually Resisted the Nazis in Holland?
While writing my book, “Night & Fog”, I conducted much research into the Dutch Resistance during World War II. The book talks mainly about Bert and Kees’ experiences, which are drawn from personal accounts and documents found posthumously. But despite the firsthand
information, more was needed to fill in the gaps and there is a plethora of information available, both in written form as well as online.

This begs the question – how many people were actually involved in resisting the efforts by the Nazis to control Dutch citizens? Out of a country with around nine million inhabitants at the time, what percentage took an active role against their occupiers? Apparently, there is a distinction between the “hard core” resistors and a larger group who resisted in a more passive manner. The hard core, or those who organized and became registered in various groups, and
took part in illegal activities numbered around 45,000, according to various historians and the NOID (Dutch Institute for War Documentation, formed in 1945 after the German surrender).
Bert and Kees were part of this group, and participated in armed skirmishes, sabotage, espionage and raids on distribution centers. Around 10,000 of this group perished during the war.

The number of those who were part of the more passive group was much larger. Anyone who was involved in “accidentally” sheltering someone, distributing illegal newspapers and pamphlets, and passing on information numbered as high as 1 million people. This would make
sense, given that approximately 300,000 were in hiding in late 1944. Those in hiding included young men evading conscription to German labor camps and factories, Jews escaping persecution and Allied soldiers who ended up behind enemy lines. The support network to hide and care for those who “dove under” had to be extensive.

While the number of hard-core resistors was less than one percent of the total population, the effect on the overall population cannot be underestimated. If one includes the passive group, who were likely encouraged by the hard core brings the percentage closer to 10 percent.

Never underestimate the power of a small group over a population.