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Resistance to the Germans was very dangerous in NAZI occupied Europe. This was especially the case in the Netherlands because there was no place to hide. There are no forests and mountainous areas. The Netherlands is perhaps the most developed country in Europe. It is not only developed, but in the NAZI Empire very isolated. The North Sea to the west was cold and forbidding and tightly patrolled by the Germans. And to the east was the Reich itself. The Gestapo proved very adept at hunting down and arresting both Resistance members and Jews. As a result many did not survive the war. This did not stop brave men and women from resisting and trying to save Jews. This is an account of one Dutch Resistance group and what they accomplished. Tragically they are among those who were arrested and executed by the Gestapo. Here is an account of one resistance group, Oranje Vrijbuiters founded by Klaas Postma and Frits Meulenkanp in Utrecht (1941). Among other activities, they attempted to save Jews.
In an earlier letter to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, I had included a few paragraphs in the English language about Klaas Postma that was a part of my first dossier to Yad Vashem. Postma was the leader of active resistance. Last week I received an e-mail from Yad Vashem, who wanted to know a little bit more about Postma, thus I began doing research for a second time. I found a number of newspaper clippings about the Oranje Vrijbuiters, a Dutch resistance group founded by Klaas Postma and Frits Meulenkanp in 1941. The headquarters was located at the Nieuwegracht in Utrecht. The clippings include the story about the execution of the Oranje Vrijbuiters (February 1944), about the betrayal by a Joop de Heus, a news item about his court case with an unbelievable leniency that did not include his death penalty for the betrayal of more than 20 members of the Oranje Vrijbuiters, further an interesting story about Klaas Postma, written by his nephew Wiebe Postma, all written in Dutch. There was just too much written in Dutch and trying to translate this all in English, would have taken me a very long time, probably many weeks, or a month. Now that Yad Vashem in their Righteous Among Nations section also had a Dutch section, hopefully they could take over my task as there is just too much information.
It was amazing how much information I could find on Google, in Dutch and in English, recording information about events, related to the Dutch, and of persons’ birth and death dates of family members, where they lived, some with occupations and the type of persons, their political and less political inclinations. Someone publicized my request to the Dutch press. But still, it is fairly difficult to discover the information on persons who can no longer talk or write with us.
Co-players:
1. Klaas Postma, born on 25 December 1904, in Meppel, living in Utrecht, Oog
en Al, executed on 29 February 1944 at Waalsdorp Plains;
2. Aart Nicholas (Niek) van Donkelaar, born on 25 March 1908 in The Hague,
living in Woerden, passed away on 18 September 1982 in Woerden;
3. Cornelis (Kees) Verhoeven, born on 28 September 1912, living in Utrecht,
Oog en Al, passed away on 11 October 1979 in Utrecht.
Common links: The three above mentioned were practicing in the profession of civil engineering, while Postma and Verhoeven both resided in Oog en Al, a suburb section of the City of Utrecht, while van Donkelaar lived in Woerden, near the City of Utrecht, about 25 kilometres west of Utrecht.
Chance meetings: After the surrender of the Dutch armed forces on 15 May 1940, van Donkelaar, formerly working for the Ministry of Defense, refused to work for the Germans and joined the Architects office of J.H. Bodengraven in Woerden. It is not known if Postma still worked for the Dutch Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) at that time, probably not. Van Donkelaar accepted a position as inspector for the construction of the Oog en Al Hospital, nearing completion and was assisted by Klaas Postma, who was the construction supervisor of the same project. During off-hours, the two men met socially and became friends. The main topic of their conversation was their common aversion and dislike of the National Socialistic ideology and what was happening under the German occupation and their common worries what was going to happen with the Jewish people and others who were on the German black lists.
One day when the two men met, they decided on trying to find hiding addresses for Jewish people in the Utrecht area at first, adding the Woerden area that followed. This also became the reason to become better organized and began with a new identity, namely the Oranje Vrijbuiters (Orange Freebooters), of which Postma took the leadership for the city of Utrecht and van Donkelaar accepted the leadership for the town of Woerden, while Frits Meulenkamp became second in command of the Utrecht section; this was at the beginning of October 1941. Utrecht remained the liaison office of the Oranje Vrijbuiters for the Woerden office, where van Donkelaar with the assistance of Jan van Elk provided Jewish hiding places.
Their actions:
A beginning was made with the falsifications of various documents, identity
papers, passports, food identity cards and so on. Printing of all the
documents were initially looked after in Woerden, later in Utrecht.
Also a beginning was made with the search for hiding addresses, in Utrecht
and Woerden and later in other parts of the country. This, originally was not
an easy task, but Postma knew a few people in the same professional fields
that he approached, including members of his own church.
Within walking distance, he remembered a Kees Verhoeven, also working in
a similar profession as his own and living nearby on the Bachstraat in Oog
en Al. He was going to see if he could persuade Verhoeven, first with a
conversation, which was work related and then see, how he would react on
the possibility of offering his home for Jewish persons. Then he also
addressed his question to Kees’s wife Betsie. They then reacted on his
request favorably, still not knowing when and which persons they could
expect. Also Betsie offered her services if she could be of any use.
With this information, Postma contacted van Donkelaar, seeing how he was
making out with his search for addresses in Woerden, which also sounded
quite favourably. He also informed Postma that he had established a
headquarters in Woerden and found a number of people who wanted to join
the Vrijbuiters.
In 1941 when the Germans started to round up people of the Jewish faith in Amsterdam, Postma lead the way together with Frits Meulenkamp (alias Frits van Kampen) , or more likely Niek van Donkelaar (alias Zonnebloem, an alias still in debate) immediately reacting to find hiding addresses.
When Oranje Vrijbuiters were informed of an upcoming transportation of Jewish people in Amsterdam (around the end of March/beginning of April 1942). [The date is important because this is when the NAZI death camps in occupied Poland began to come on line.] The Oranje Vrijbuiters resisters went to the Jewish Ghetto of the Rivieren Wijk in Amsterdam and met the Jacobson family.
Postma came in contact with the Jacobson family in the Rivieren Wijk, the Jewish Ghetto in Amsterdam. Somehow the Jacobson family decided that their two daughters Eva and Ilse would leave first while they would wait a few days, probably for finalization of certain property or finances.
The Jacobsons saw the immediate need for their two daughters, Eva and
Ilse to depart from this area, finding a new location, while their parents were
going to follow them within a few days to wind up their obligations.
Ilse and Eva arrived in Utrecht, probably at a Woerden farm, around the end of March or at the beginning of April 1942. Seeing that their first hiding address lacked certain sanitary accommodations, definitely not Utrecht, where every house was equipped with a sanitation provision, Postma promised to relocate them to a better address, this time in Utrecht and contacts were made with Kees and Betsie Verhoeven. Presently I am trying to find a connection between the Verhoevens and Postma, pending confirming information on the hand of Betsie Verhoeven’s diary.
According to records the name of Zonnebloem was mentioned thus it could
not have been Frits Meulenkamp, who had a different alias name. ‘Frits van
Kampen’. More likely the second person was somebody with an alias name
of Zonnebloem, presumably that could have been Niek van Donkelaar.
Even
if Ilse mentioned that they went to Utrecht, but the house that they entered
had only an outhouse as a form of sanitation. As far as I know, Dutch homes
were all equipped with indoor sanitation equipment and it was more likely
that they arrived at a farm house, not in Utrecht, but in Woerden, van Don-
kelaar’s territory. However Postma took them later to Oog en Al to the home
of the Verhoevens where they were warmly welcomed. Later, Eva, who was
the more active type, and older, then 19 years old, could not be easily cooped
up, joined the resistance group (at which function?) and moved to Soest. There she married Jaap ???? and had a child in 1944.
Ilse was 14 years old that time. Thank God, she is still alive, now 88 years
old and living in the United States, not in the best of health.
A few days later, after Eva and Ilse had left, most likely Dr. Paul and Mrs.
Maria Jacobson were transported to the Dutch concentration camp of
Westerbork (not confirmed) before they arrived at the Sobibor death camp
camp and were murdered almost a year later on 25 March 1943. (Records lost)
Meanwhile Postma and his helpers were still very active in the location of
many hiding addresses, establishing centres in two extra locations,
especially for processing the increasing numbers of Jewish people with the
provision of food distribution cards, identity papers, passports, Ausweiss, etc.
Many hiding addresses were found in the Veluwe region and in the northern
parts of the country, where German activities were at a reduced rate,
compared to the larger cities in the west.
Apparently the two responsibilities were clearly defined:
Postma from his own home with a few helpers was in charge of looking after
his many Jewish people, falsifications of the various documents and
distribution of the food distribution ration cards by his couriers, including
Betsie Verhoeven.
Meulenkamp looked after the more armed parts of the organization of the
many acts of war, eliminating several Germans and Dutch Nazis, sabotage,
raiding offices of personalized information and to obtain the necessary
food distribution cards that he passed on to Postma.
At the beginning of 1943, Frits Meulenkamp became the commander of the armed resistance group, the so-called Knok Ploegen with 24 male members, and one female member by the name of Truus Solleveld. Meulenkamp started operations from the new Oranje Vrijbuiters headquarters at Nieuwe Gracht 151 in Utrecht, working in close connections with the Postma organization office. Leaders of the Knok Ploegen were Hans van Kosteveld and Tom Spoelstra. They also worked with the armed and financial supports from the British Intelligence office in London for which they acted as spies on German installations. Arms and agents were often dropped by parachutes. Agents were then supplied with spying material that had to be returned to England, either by pre-arranged plane landings or submarines that were located off the Dutch coast, which was a standard practice.
One of their first actions were to raid the food distribution cards offices to supply Postma’s many hidden Jewish people with the means to obtain food legally that was distributed by a number of couriers.
Their guerrilla activities consisted of multifold armed operations such as their attacks on rail roads, on Dutch traitors, Dutch National Socialists, collaborators, and Germans; their spying missions and sabotage, operating a network with other resistance groups. They also were financially supported by a few Dutch people, who contributed to the work that they were doing.
Betrayal: Too late they realized that one of their members had betrayed them, Joop de
Heus, who informed the Germans (for some dark reason) and caused the
raids on the Vrijbuiters’ headquarter and Klaas Postma’s home, followed by
the one in Woerden in August 1943.
Many members of the group were arrested and transported to the Oranje
Hotel in Scheveningen, founded guilty and executed at the Waalsdorp Vlakte (28 February 1944), reburied in 1947 in Utrecht. A few escaped.
We have a final contribution of Postma’s widow, who visited him during his incarceration on a few occasions, which were recorded by means of an Honour List application of names of people, who died for the Fatherland, signed by Widow Th. J. Postma-van Straaten, Mendelssohnstraat 82, Utrecht. (no date on this application is given) just file number No. 2629.
I refer you to questions 6 & 7, which will be translated from the Dutch and to
be followed in its original Dutch as far as the wording is legible:
Question 6: “What did the fallen person experience in either prison or camp?”
“Can not tell too much about it, because I only was allowed to visit
him 3x, but that is where, my husband carried himself courageously
and strongly and never complained when I saw him, he still
encouraged me.”
Vraag 6 : “Wat heeft gevallene in gevangenis of kamp ondervonden?”
“Kan daar niet veel over vertellen daar ik maar 3x mijn man heb
mogen bezoeken. Maar dat is waar, mijn man heeft zich moedig
en flink gehouden en klaagde nooit als ik hem zag, hij sprak mij
nog moed in.”
Question 7: “Please provide a short course of life of the fallen person during the war, stating illegal activities, organizations, motives, and other special circumstances”.
“Of course, I cannot mention all of what my husband did during the
war years but I can only write that he helped many Jewish people
finding hiding addresses and also advised and assisted young men
and later he became the leader of the Resistance movement, but he
gave himself to the total dedication of his Fatherland.”
Vraag 7 : “ Korte levensloop van de(n) gevallene gedurende de oorlog, onder vermelding van illegaal werk, organisatie, beweegreden en andere bijzonderheden:”
“Ik kan natuurlijk niet alles gaan opnoemen hetgeen mijn man in de
oorlog heeft gedaan, maar kan toch enkele dingen schrijven, eerst
heeft hij vele Joden ’n schuilplaats gegeven en ook Jonge mannen
met raad en daad bij gestaan, en later is hij als leider der
Verzetsbeweging over gegaan, maar heeft zich geheel gegeven aan
zijn Vaderland.”
In my search for trying to find any other person who uses “Zonnebloem” as an alias, was Nicole Cohen, born in 1970, she could not have been the “Zonnebloem” I was searching for.
In my final analysis, most of the above information was based on facts, conversations and personal experiences.
Unfortunately the archives of the Netherlands Institute of War Documentation and the Oranje Hotel were unable to supply me with a list of Jewish people whose lives were saved by Klaas Postma.
The only indication that I could find was in the statement made by Postma’s widow, who writes about the MANY JEWS her husband was able to find hiding addresses for them.
I only can add the names of Eva and Ilse Jacobson to the list of total names that no longer exists.
This page was compiled and written by Harty van Engelen, born in the Netherlands and now living in Canada. Harty at the time of the German World War II invasion of his country was a choir boy in Utrecht. He has provided us accounts of his personal experiences and observations as a boy in the occupied Netherlands. This article, however, is not one of his personal accounts, but rather an account he has researched.
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