40 Dutch Righteous Among the Nations

Willem Arondeus was a Dutch artist and author who joined the Dutch anti-Nazi resistance movement during World War II. He participated in the bombing of the Amsterdam public records office to hinder the Nazi German effort to identify Dutch Jews and others wanted by the Gestapo. Arondeus was caught and executed soon after his arrest. Yad Vashem recognized Arondeus as Righteous Among the Nations.

Johan Benders was a Dutch teacher at the Amsterdams Lyceum, who encouraged his students to manufacture false identification papers and food ration cards for Jews in order to help them escape persecution by the occupying Nazi Germany. His wife, Gerritdina Letteboer, and he sheltered Jews in their home. In 1943, however, they were betrayed by a neighbor and Johan was arrested by Gestapo. In prison, he was tortured. Johan Benders had tried to commit suicide but failed twice. On 6 April he jumped from the third floor of the prison he was held in, to avoid giving information under torture. Johan and Gerritdina took in Rosalie and Katie Wijnberg, Lore Polak, another Jewish girl and Jan Doedens.

Godfried Jan Arnold Bomans was a Dutch author and television personality. Much of his work remains untranslated into English.

Elisabeth ten Boom was a Dutch woman, the daughter of a watchmaker, who suffered persecution under the Nazi regime in World War II, including incarceration in Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she died aged 59. The daughter of Casper ten Boom, she is one of the leading characters in The Hiding Place, a book written by her sister Corrie ten Boom about the family′s experiences during World War II. Nicknamed Betsie, she suffered from pernicious anemia from her birth. The oldest of five Ten Boom children, she did not leave the family and marry, but remained at home until World War II. She is a Righteous Among the Nations.

Casper ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who helped many Jews and resisters escape the Nazis during the Holocaust of World War II. He is the father of Betsie and Corrie ten Boom, who also aided the Jews and were sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where Betsie died. Casper died 9 March 1944 in The Hague, after nine days of imprisonment in the Scheveningen Prison. In 2008, he was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Cornelia Arnolda Johanna "Corrie" ten Boom was a Dutch Christian watchmaker and later a writer who worked with her father, Casper ten Boom, her sister Betsie ten Boom and other family members to help many Jewish people escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust in World War II by hiding them in her home. She believed her actions were following the will of God. They were caught, and she was arrested and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her most famous book, The Hiding Place, is a biography that recounts the story of her family's efforts and how she found and shared hope in God while she was imprisoned at the concentration camp.

Alida Margaretha Bosshardt, better known as Major Bosshardt, was a well known officer in The Salvation Army, and more or less the public face of this Christian organization in the Netherlands.

Aat (Adri) Breur-Hibma was a Dutch draftswoman and painter. During World War II, she entered the Dutch resistance and ended up as a Nacht und Nebel prisoner in Ravensbrück. There she made poignant pencil drawings of fellow prisoners that are preserved at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. She was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations in 1995.

Nicolette Adriana Bruining was a Dutch theologian and founding president of the Liberal Protestant Radio Broadcasting Corporation (VPRO). She was also a teacher and humanitarian, assisting Jews during the Second World War. Her aid was acknowledged by the state of Israel, which posthumously awarded her as Righteous Among the Nations in 1990.

Jan Augustus Gies was a member of the Dutch Resistance who, with his wife, Miep, helped hide Anne Frank, her sister Margot, their parents Otto and Edith, the van Pels, and Fritz Pfeffer from Nazi persecution during the occupation of The Netherlands by aiding them as they resided in the Secret Annex.

Hermine "Miep" Gies, was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family and four other Dutch Jews from the Nazis in an annex above Otto Frank's business premises during World War II. She was Austrian by birth, but in 1920, at the age of eleven, she was taken in as a foster child by a Dutch family to whom she became very attached. Although she was initially only to stay for six months, this stay was extended to one year because of frail health, after which Gies chose to remain with them, living the rest of her life in the Netherlands. She died in 2010 at age 100.

Walraven (Wally) van Hall was a Dutch banker and resistance leader during the occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. He founded the bank of the Resistance, which was used to distribute funds to victims of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and fund the Dutch resistance.

Jan van Hulst was an engineer who was active in the Dutch resistance during the Second World War. He was instrumental in preventing Jews from being deported and killed during the Holocaust, and is recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.

Johan Willem van Hulst was a Dutch school director, university professor, author, politician and chess player. In 1943, with the help of the Dutch resistance and students of the nearby University of Amsterdam, he was instrumental in saving over 600 Jewish children from the nursery of the Hollandsche Schouwburg who were destined for deportation to Nazi concentration camps. For his humanitarian actions he received the Yad Vashem distinction Righteous Among the Nations from the State of Israel in 1973.

Johannes Kleiman was one of the Dutch residents who helped hide Anne Frank and her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In the published version of Frank's diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, he is given the pseudonym Mr. Koophuis. In some later publications of the diary, the pseudonym was removed, and Kleiman was referred to by his real name.

Victor Kugler was one of the people who helped hide Anne Frank and her family and friends during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In Anne Frank's posthumously published diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, he was referred to under the name Mr. Kraler.

Caecilia Antonia Maria "Cilia" Loots was a Dutch teacher and antifascist resistance member, known for saving Jewish children during World War II. She is recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.

Tette "Ted" Meines was a lieutenant general in the Royal Netherlands Army and an activist for veterans' rights. During World War II, he was a member of the Dutch resistance and helped Jewish families, for which he was awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by Israel. After the war had ended, Meines saw active service in the Politionele acties. During and after his military career, he became involved in veteran affairs and was instrumental in the setting up of several veterans organizations. He is considered the founder of the Dutch veteran affairs policy.

Truus Menger-Oversteegen was a Dutch sculptor and painter. During the Second World War she was a member of the anti-Nazi Dutch armed resistance and performed many resistance activities together with her sister Freddie Oversteegen and Hannie Schaft.

Nieuwlande is a small Dutch village. The population, as of 1 January 2004, is 1,250. It is located in the north-eastern province of Drenthe. In the Drents dialect, the town is called Neilande. The town is situated in the municipality of Hoogeveen. It is one of only two villages in the world that collectively received Righteous Among the Nations award for all 117 inhabitants of the village for saving Jews during World War II, the other being the French Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

Henrica Maria Paré was a Dutch resistance member, and visual artist. Ru Paré found shelter and took care of 52 Jewish children, who all survived World War II.

Jaap Penraat was a Dutch resistance fighter during the Second World War.

Frederik Jacques "Frits" Philips was the fourth chairman of the board of directors of the Dutch electronics company Philips, which his uncle and father founded. For his actions in saving 382 Jews during the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, he was recognized in 1996 by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations.

Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot was a Dutch economist, feminist and radio broadcaster. As the first woman to attain a doctorate in economics in The Netherlands, her work focused on the impact of working women on the economy. Recognizing that there were few sources, she joined with other feminists to create the International Archives for the Women's Movement in 1935. Writing reports on women's work, she refuted government claims that women working outside the home was of no benefit. First proposed in 1939, the Household Council, which she saw as an organization to foster training and organize domestic laborers was instituted in 1950. She founded the International Association of Women in Radio, as an organization for professional development and networking in 1949. As a peace activist, she was involved in the promotion of pacifism and believing women had unique qualities for solving world problems, she established the International Scientific Institute for Feminine Interpretation. In 1982, in recognition of her significant contributions to the Dutch Women's Movement, Posthumus-van der Goot was appointed as an officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. In 2008, she, her husband and sister, were honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the government of Israel, for their fostering children during the Dutch occupation by the Nazis.

Nicolaas Wilhelmus Posthumus or N.W. Posthumus was a Dutch economic historian, political scientist, and professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Marion Philippina Pritchard was a Dutch-American social worker and psychoanalyst, who distinguished herself as a saviour of Jews in the Netherlands during the Second World War. Pritchard helped save approximately 150 Dutch Jews, most of them children, throughout the German occupation of the Netherlands. In addition to protecting these peoples lives, she was imprisoned by Nazis, worked in collaboration with the Dutch resistance, and shot dead a known Dutch informer to the Nazis to save Dutch Jewish children.

Anna Helena Margaretha (Annie) Romein-Verschoor was a Dutch author and historian. She received the Constantijn Huygens Prize in 1970.

Jan Marius Romein was a Dutch historian, journalist, literary scholar and professor of history at the University of Amsterdam. A Marxist and a student of Huizinga, Romein is remembered for his popularizing books of Dutch national history, jointly authored with his wife Annie Romein-Verschoor. His work has been translated into English, German, French, Italian, Indonesian and Japanese.

Jonkheer Willem Jacob Henri Berend Sandberg known as Willem Sandberg was a Dutch typographer, museum curator, and member of the Dutch resistance during World War II.

Jannetje Johanna (Jo) Schaft was a Dutch resistance fighter during World War II. She became known as 'the girl with the red hair'. Her secret name in the resistance movement was "Hannie".

Tina Strobos, née Tineke Buchter, was a Dutch physician and psychiatrist from Amsterdam, known for her resistance work during World War II. While a young medical student, she worked with her mother and grandmother to rescue more than 100 Jewish refugees as part of the Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Strobos provided her house as a hiding place for Jews on the run, using a secret attic compartment and warning bell system to keep them safe from sudden police raids. In addition, Strobos smuggled guns and radios for the resistance and forged passports to help refugees escape the country. Despite being arrested and interrogated nine times by the Gestapo, she never betrayed the whereabouts of a Jew.

Jacoba van Tongeren 14 October 1903 – Bergen, 15 September 1967) was a resistance fighter, the founder and leader of Group 2000, a resistance group during the Second World War. Jacoba van Tongeren is the only woman to have created and led a resistance group during the war. In 1990, Yad Vashem honoured Jacoba van Tongeren as Righteous Among the Nations.

Gisèle d'Ailly van Waterschoot van der Gracht, also known by the mononym Gisèle, was a Dutch visual artist. During World War II, she operated a safe house out of her home for a group of young Jewish people in Amsterdam.

Gerrit van der Veen was a Dutch sculptor. He was a member of the Dutch underground, which resisted the German occupation of Amsterdam during World War II. The historian Robert-Jan van Pelt wrote: In 1940, after the German occupation, van der Veen was one of the few who re-fused to sign the so-called “Arierverklaring,” the Declaration of Aryan Ancestry. In the years that followed, he tried to help Jews both in practical and symbolic ways. Together with the musician Jan van Gilse and the artist, art historian, and critic Willem Arondeus, van der Veen established the underground organization De Vrije Kunstenaar. Van der Veen and the other artists published a newsletter calling for resistance against the occupation. When the Germans introduced identity documents (Persoonsbewijzen) that distinguished between Jews and non-Jews, van der Veen, Arondeus and the printer Frans Duwaer produced some 80,000 false identity papers.

Elisabeth "Bep" Voskuijl helped conceal Anne Frank and her family from Nazi persecution during the occupation of the Netherlands. In the early versions of The Diary of Anne Frank, she was given the pseudonym "Elli Vossen".

Henriëtte ("Hetty") Voûte (1918–1999) was a Dutch Resistance fighter who was declared Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem on 24 March 1988 for her work rescuing Dutch Jewish children whose parents had been deported to Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

Johan Hendrik Weidner was a highly decorated Dutch hero of World War II.

Joop Westerweel was a schoolteacher, a non-conformist socialist and a Christian anarchist who became a Dutch World War II resistance leader, the head of the Westerweel Group.

Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer was a Dutch resistance fighter who brought Jewish children and adults into safety before and during the Second World War. Together with other people involved in the pre-war Kindertransport, she saved the lives of more than 10,000 Jewish children, fleeing anti-Semitism. She was honored as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem. After the war she served on the Amsterdam city council.

Jan Zwartendijk was a Dutch businessman and diplomat. As director of the Philips factories in Lithuania and part-time acting consul of the Dutch government-in-exile, he supervised the writing of 2,345 visas for Curaçao to save Jews from the Holocaust during World War II. In 1997, Yad Vashem recognised him as Righteous Among the Nations.