1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:06,000 May 1940, Germany invades the Netherlands. 2 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 3 00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:10,040 Five days later, the Dutch surrender. 4 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 5 00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:13,200 United by their hatred of the Nazis, 6 00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:16,360 a struggling artist and an accomplished cellist 7 00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:19,280 take on the might of the German army. 8 00:00:19,320 --> 00:00:21,680 Using their artistic skills, 9 00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:23,720 they save thousands of Jews 10 00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:25,240 from the death camps. 11 00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:31,040 To me, people like this should be celebrated as heroes. 12 00:00:31,080 --> 00:00:35,000 Yet Willem Arondeus and Frieda Belinfante 13 00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:39,360 are barely known in the Netherlands, let alone around the world. 14 00:00:39,400 --> 00:00:42,160 I've come to Amsterdam to find out why. 15 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:07,600 First they came for the socialists, 16 00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:09,240 and I didn't speak out 17 00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:11,400 because I was not a socialist. 18 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:16,400 Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak out 19 00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:19,600 because I was not a trade unionist. 20 00:01:23,440 --> 00:01:25,800 Then they came for the Jews. 21 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:29,160 And I didn't speak out because I was not a Jew. 22 00:01:34,960 --> 00:01:37,000 Then they came for me 23 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:40,440 and there was no-one left to speak for me. 24 00:01:50,760 --> 00:01:53,800 That poem was written by Martin Niemoller, 25 00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:56,960 a Lutheran pastor imprisoned in Dachau 26 00:01:57,000 --> 00:01:59,440 for his opposition to Hitler. 27 00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:03,840 He urges us all to speak out against injustice. 28 00:02:12,880 --> 00:02:16,800 When the Germans occupied the Netherlands in 1940, 29 00:02:16,840 --> 00:02:20,840 Jews were forced into hiding all over the country. 30 00:02:20,880 --> 00:02:23,320 They were called onderduikers 31 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:25,720 literally under divers. 32 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:27,720 Here in ARTIS, 33 00:02:27,760 --> 00:02:29,840 Amsterdam's famous zoo, 34 00:02:29,880 --> 00:02:34,880 250 Jews spent the war hidden in storage lofts, 35 00:02:34,920 --> 00:02:39,280 smuggled in by staff who used animal rations to feed them, 36 00:02:39,320 --> 00:02:41,920 rations, ironically enough, 37 00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:45,640 provided by the Nazis who loved the zoo. 38 00:02:46,920 --> 00:02:52,360 It takes real courage to speak out for groups that you don't belong to. 39 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:55,160 Hypothetically, we'd all love to believe that 40 00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:57,160 we'd stand up and be counted. 41 00:02:57,200 --> 00:02:59,640 But for the Dutch, it was more than hypothetical. 42 00:02:59,680 --> 00:03:03,320 Before the war, they opened their arms to thousands of Jews 43 00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:06,720 fleeing persecution in Nazi Germany. 44 00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:10,640 And as the German grip on Europe tightened, hundreds of thousands 45 00:03:10,680 --> 00:03:15,360 of Jews were deported to concentration camps in the east. 46 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:20,080 Members of my own family were taken from their home in Vienna and sent 47 00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:22,320 to Riga and Auschwitz, 48 00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:24,720 never to be heard of again. 49 00:03:25,760 --> 00:03:32,560 But, thousands of ordinary people risked their lives to help the Jews, 50 00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:36,040 sharing their food, hiding them in cellars and attics. 51 00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:40,800 And the question that I often ask myself 52 00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:45,000 is would I be brave enough to do as they did? 53 00:03:45,040 --> 00:03:47,960 I'd like to think so, I'd hope so, but would I? 54 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:49,640 Would we? 55 00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:50,920 Would you? 56 00:03:53,280 --> 00:03:57,480 This is the story of people who were brave enough, 57 00:03:57,520 --> 00:04:00,520 brave enough to risk everything. 58 00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:07,320 By 1940, there were over 140,000 Jews 59 00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:09,600 living in the Netherlands. 60 00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:11,880 40,000 survived. 61 00:04:11,920 --> 00:04:15,960 That means over 100,000 lives 62 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:17,800 were wiped off the face of the earth 63 00:04:17,840 --> 00:04:22,080 with mechanical, industrial efficiency by Hitler. 64 00:04:22,120 --> 00:04:25,520 The man who called them "unter mensch", 65 00:04:25,560 --> 00:04:27,040 subhuman. 66 00:04:30,280 --> 00:04:34,200 Willem Arondeus was one of those unter mensch. 67 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:36,920 He was born in 1894. 68 00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:39,840 His parents ran a theatrical costumier's, 69 00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:42,920 not that the family business was ever of much interest to Willem. 70 00:04:42,960 --> 00:04:46,560 No, all he ever cared about was his art. 71 00:04:55,720 --> 00:04:59,680 When he was just 17, Willem announced that he was gay. 72 00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:02,360 His father promptly threw him out. 73 00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:04,680 Willem never spoke to him again. 74 00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:28,000 Here in the Rijksmuseum's Gallery of Honour 75 00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:32,160 the walls are lined with paintings by the great Dutch masters. 76 00:05:32,200 --> 00:05:35,080 Vermeer, Hals, Jan Steen. 77 00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:36,960 And, of course... 78 00:05:38,840 --> 00:05:40,440 ..The Night Watch. 79 00:05:55,440 --> 00:05:58,640 How wonderful, Niels, to be in the presence of some 80 00:05:58,680 --> 00:06:01,560 Arondeus works here in the Rijksmuseum. 81 00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:05,480 I don't suppose he ever guessed he would have pieces of his here, 82 00:06:05,520 --> 00:06:07,600 along with Rembrandt and Vermeer. 83 00:06:07,640 --> 00:06:09,960 I can see his signature, there we are. 84 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:13,400 Very, um, homoerotic, isn't it? 85 00:06:13,440 --> 00:06:16,880 And it's called Les Amis, the friends. 86 00:06:16,920 --> 00:06:19,320 But very much the boyfriends because it's... 87 00:06:19,360 --> 00:06:21,040 Definitely boyfriends. Yeah. 88 00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:25,840 Would it have been regarded as pornographic almost by some people? 89 00:06:25,880 --> 00:06:26,920 Possibly, yeah. 90 00:06:26,960 --> 00:06:30,440 I think, like, he drew it after a book, 91 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:32,080 which was called Escal-Vigor. 92 00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:34,480 It's a book by a Flemish author. Right. 93 00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:37,080 And that's a book with a homoerotic theme? 94 00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:39,560 A very homo... A very homoerotic theme. 95 00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:43,280 That's quite rare for that period. No, yeah, it's true. 96 00:06:43,320 --> 00:06:47,240 It was like one of the first novels in which homosexuality 97 00:06:47,280 --> 00:06:51,680 was discussed in a very open, positive way. 98 00:06:51,720 --> 00:06:55,480 Right, so it didn't end in the usual suicide and all that. 99 00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:58,960 I'm sorry to tell you, but, like, the book ends in tragedy. They always did. 100 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:00,640 But despite... As usual. 101 00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:02,760 Despite the suicide... Despite all that, yeah. 102 00:07:02,800 --> 00:07:05,480 Oh, dear, that's ever the way. 103 00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:09,080 But he would have read this and, of course, like that whole generation 104 00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:12,800 he would imagine his life would end miserably as the heroes of the novel. 105 00:07:12,840 --> 00:07:15,720 But at least it had its tender moments and it's a very tender work. 106 00:07:15,760 --> 00:07:18,880 Yeah, and it's just like the first moment they declare their love 107 00:07:18,920 --> 00:07:20,400 for each other. Oh. 108 00:07:22,080 --> 00:07:24,160 THEY CHATTER SOFTLY 109 00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:36,640 I'm really excited about this. Yeah. 110 00:07:36,680 --> 00:07:40,400 This is, like, the newest acquisition of the museum. 111 00:07:40,440 --> 00:07:41,480 Oh. 112 00:07:42,520 --> 00:07:44,000 Look at this. 113 00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:45,440 Oh! 114 00:07:45,480 --> 00:07:47,360 That's so Aubrey Beardsley. Yeah. 115 00:07:47,400 --> 00:07:49,520 Now, I know that he was a fan of Oscar Wilde. 116 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:52,000 Like, he read most of his books. 117 00:07:52,040 --> 00:07:55,840 And, of course, Oscar's most famous illustrator was Aubrey Beardsley. 118 00:07:55,880 --> 00:07:59,960 And they have a hint of that sort of style, didn't they? 119 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:03,200 The books by Wilde were translated into Dutch in the 1910s. 120 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:04,760 Is that right? Yeah. 121 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:05,920 Interesting. 122 00:08:05,960 --> 00:08:08,840 And, of course, he'd been a very young man when the scandal 123 00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:12,080 of Oscar Wilde and Oscar Wilde going to prison would have happened, 124 00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:16,520 which would have cast a dark shadow on his sense of self. 125 00:08:16,560 --> 00:08:20,120 I mean, when I was a teenager, I read about Oscar Wilde, 126 00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:24,240 and it made me think, because I knew that I shared his nature, 127 00:08:24,280 --> 00:08:27,920 and it made me think this is the fate of gay people. 128 00:08:27,960 --> 00:08:30,280 This is what will happen to us, we will be outcasts, 129 00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:32,480 we will be exiled, 130 00:08:32,520 --> 00:08:36,440 we will be, you know, sneered at and mocked. 131 00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:38,160 And, um... 132 00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:41,640 ..and he must have felt that even more back then. 133 00:08:41,680 --> 00:08:46,120 But, nonetheless, he was able to celebrate this same style. 134 00:08:49,680 --> 00:08:54,560 Like, we know that Willem created a lot of illustrations for books... Mm. 135 00:08:54,600 --> 00:08:58,000 ..but they were never published. 136 00:08:58,040 --> 00:08:59,840 Right, poor soul. 137 00:08:59,880 --> 00:09:03,680 So he's a bit miserable, perhaps, about his future as an artist at this stage, do you think? 138 00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:05,440 Yeah, I think so, yeah. 139 00:09:05,480 --> 00:09:08,640 Perhaps it isn't wrong to say that he was somehow waiting 140 00:09:08,680 --> 00:09:09,800 for a chance to shine 141 00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:12,720 and that chance came from the most unlikely quarter, 142 00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:14,000 the Nazis. 143 00:09:14,040 --> 00:09:16,440 It turned him into a hero. 144 00:09:32,080 --> 00:09:36,440 In 1932, money troubles forced Willem to move 145 00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:39,480 to a small town called Apeldoorn 146 00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:43,360 and there his world was turned upside down. 147 00:09:43,400 --> 00:09:45,680 Willem fell in love. 148 00:09:45,720 --> 00:09:48,000 He fell for a young market gardener 149 00:09:48,040 --> 00:09:50,080 called Jan Tijssen 150 00:09:50,120 --> 00:09:55,560 and afterwards, nothing would ever be the same again. 151 00:09:57,400 --> 00:10:00,360 Desperate to provide for the man he loved 152 00:10:00,400 --> 00:10:02,200 Willem started writing, 153 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:04,720 working on a biography of his hero, 154 00:10:04,760 --> 00:10:07,520 the Dutch artist Matthijs Maris. 155 00:10:09,760 --> 00:10:13,880 One person determined to bring Willem's story to a wider public 156 00:10:13,920 --> 00:10:17,120 is Dutch politician and gay rights campaigner 157 00:10:17,160 --> 00:10:18,840 Boris Dittrich. 158 00:10:20,240 --> 00:10:22,840 It's quite a story, the story of Willem and Jan. 159 00:10:22,880 --> 00:10:24,080 Exactly, exactly. 160 00:10:24,120 --> 00:10:25,840 It's, um... 161 00:10:25,880 --> 00:10:28,920 I know that he came from Appeldoorn, is that right? 162 00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:32,560 Well, they met in Appeldoorn and then they lived in Appeldoorn. 163 00:10:32,600 --> 00:10:35,920 But because Willem Arondeus was an artist, 164 00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:38,800 a painter, a writer, 165 00:10:38,840 --> 00:10:42,400 he actually felt, "I need to go back to Amsterdam 166 00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:44,280 to do research on my books 167 00:10:44,320 --> 00:10:46,480 and my paintings and stuff like that." 168 00:10:46,520 --> 00:10:49,800 So they moved back to the big city, Amsterdam, 169 00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:52,920 but then the Germans and the Nazis 170 00:10:52,960 --> 00:10:55,560 invaded the Netherlands and took over. 171 00:10:55,600 --> 00:11:00,000 And then nobody cared about books any more, but about survival. 172 00:11:01,880 --> 00:11:06,680 On the 10th of May 1940, the Germans invaded. 173 00:11:12,440 --> 00:11:15,000 The very next day, Willem and Jan 174 00:11:15,040 --> 00:11:17,200 were enjoying a lie-in 175 00:11:17,240 --> 00:11:20,520 when bombs jettisoned from a stricken German plane 176 00:11:20,560 --> 00:11:23,000 literally blew them out of bed. 177 00:11:23,040 --> 00:11:27,160 Any closer and there wouldn't be a story to tell. 178 00:11:29,800 --> 00:11:31,640 On the 14th of May, 179 00:11:31,680 --> 00:11:34,640 the Luftwaffe flattened Rotterdam. 180 00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:42,760 The Dutch surrendered. 181 00:11:44,880 --> 00:11:49,440 Hitler installed his own Reich's commissar to lead the country, 182 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:54,000 an unwavering anti-Semite called the Seyss-Inquart. 183 00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:55,640 HE SPEAKS GERMAN 184 00:11:55,680 --> 00:11:58,800 Within months, Seyss-Inquart had introduced 185 00:11:58,840 --> 00:12:01,840 an insidiously devious piece of legislation 186 00:12:01,880 --> 00:12:05,200 called the Aryan Declaration, 187 00:12:05,240 --> 00:12:09,560 which obliged all civil servants to declare their religion. 188 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:13,760 All Jews, of course, were immediately dismissed. 189 00:12:13,800 --> 00:12:15,560 APPLAUSE 190 00:12:20,520 --> 00:12:22,320 Willem wasn't Jewish, 191 00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:24,760 but he was incensed, 192 00:12:24,800 --> 00:12:28,640 incensed enough to publish a pamphlet calling on everyone 193 00:12:28,680 --> 00:12:31,680 to resist the Nazis in any way they could. 194 00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:34,600 He called it the Brandarisbrief, 195 00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:38,280 after the oldest lighthouse in the Netherlands, 196 00:12:38,320 --> 00:12:42,720 a beacon of hope and a warning of danger. 197 00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:47,480 Willem became very much involved in the resistance movement, 198 00:12:47,520 --> 00:12:51,320 and he wrote his papers against the Germans and the Nazis. 199 00:12:51,360 --> 00:12:55,080 But he got afraid for Jan 200 00:12:55,120 --> 00:12:59,160 and he thought, "Well, if I will be arrested, then Jan will be arrested." 201 00:12:59,200 --> 00:13:04,520 So Willem was afraid that it could really risk Jan's life. 202 00:13:04,560 --> 00:13:08,080 So at the end of several conversations, 203 00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:10,120 they decided to split up 204 00:13:10,160 --> 00:13:14,000 and Jan went back to Appeldoorn, where he came from. 205 00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:17,080 And Willem stayed because he wanted to 206 00:13:17,120 --> 00:13:19,560 continue his fight against the Germans. 207 00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:24,120 So he basically sacrificed the love of his life 208 00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:26,880 for something greater 209 00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:30,400 to fight against the German occupiers. 210 00:13:30,440 --> 00:13:32,440 Because they didn't meet again. 211 00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:36,040 They never met after that, which is horrible, actually, 212 00:13:36,080 --> 00:13:38,240 because they really loved each other. 213 00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:41,040 And we ought to have a picture, really, 214 00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:44,480 of what...what the German view of gay life 215 00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:48,040 and gay identity and practice was. 216 00:13:48,080 --> 00:13:50,360 Exactly, they took about, I think, 217 00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:54,520 50,000 German gay men to the camps, 218 00:13:54,560 --> 00:13:57,080 and they had to wear this pink triangle. 219 00:13:57,120 --> 00:14:01,160 This was even before they started to go after the Jews. Really. 220 00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:03,240 They started with the gays 221 00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:06,600 and there were no protests. That's interesting. 222 00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:09,520 Do you think that's because it was like getting a foot in the door 223 00:14:09,560 --> 00:14:12,120 of...of what was to become 224 00:14:12,160 --> 00:14:15,520 this transporting of hated minorities 225 00:14:15,560 --> 00:14:17,320 into the death camps as they were? 226 00:14:17,360 --> 00:14:19,600 Some historians explain it 227 00:14:19,640 --> 00:14:24,360 like, um, nobody was really speaking up for gay men 228 00:14:24,400 --> 00:14:27,480 because they were considered perverts and abnormal. 229 00:14:27,520 --> 00:14:33,080 So it was really the weakest link, more or less, in Dutch society, 230 00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:37,000 so it was very easy to target them and to separate them 231 00:14:37,040 --> 00:14:39,120 and to make them illegal. 232 00:14:39,160 --> 00:14:42,320 And I guess as a as a gay man and an artist, 233 00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:44,720 he made the connection with Jewish people, 234 00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:46,280 although he wasn't Jewish himself. 235 00:14:46,320 --> 00:14:49,720 Exactly, because you recognise injustice, 236 00:14:49,760 --> 00:14:53,200 because minority groups always have to fight 237 00:14:53,240 --> 00:14:56,360 for their place in society against a majority. 238 00:14:56,400 --> 00:14:59,720 And so he said, "I feel some kind of inter-solidarity 239 00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:01,120 "with other minority groups. 240 00:15:01,160 --> 00:15:03,320 "We have to stand up and we have to show 241 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:06,280 "that we do not accept injustice." 242 00:15:08,200 --> 00:15:09,840 Seyss-Inquart's 243 00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:12,560 next move was to ensure that everyone in the Netherlands 244 00:15:12,600 --> 00:15:14,680 carried an identity card. 245 00:15:15,800 --> 00:15:20,320 To his delight, he discovered that the Dutch already had 246 00:15:20,360 --> 00:15:21,960 Persoon Beweis, 247 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:26,040 the most sophisticated identity card system in the world. 248 00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:30,040 The Nazis were able to turn this into a lethal bureaucratic 249 00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:33,560 weapon when they realised that all they had to do was stamp 250 00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:37,440 Jewish cards with a large black letter J. 251 00:15:38,720 --> 00:15:43,480 And the cards marked with a J represented a ticking clock 252 00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:45,440 for every Jew in the country. 253 00:15:57,840 --> 00:16:01,560 Besides Willem Arondeus, there were other artists in the city 254 00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:05,560 who had found innovative ways to resist the Nazis. 255 00:16:05,600 --> 00:16:09,680 One of them was a woman called Frieda Belinfante. 256 00:16:09,720 --> 00:16:12,160 Freida was an accomplished cellist. 257 00:16:12,200 --> 00:16:15,200 Her father was Jewish, her mother Catholic. 258 00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:17,160 Like Willem, Frieda 259 00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:20,840 had also known from an early age that she was gay and never hid 260 00:16:20,880 --> 00:16:24,880 the fact, she simply thought it was her business. 261 00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:29,680 I never even mentioned it. 262 00:16:29,720 --> 00:16:34,040 Because it doesn't, it doesn't make any difference to me. 263 00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:40,560 I have always met every human being like, like an equal. 264 00:16:40,600 --> 00:16:45,320 I think a human being is a human being, however he's born, is... 265 00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:47,080 That's how he's born. 266 00:16:47,120 --> 00:16:48,680 And thus has to live with it. 267 00:16:50,280 --> 00:16:55,600 Frieda became the first woman in Europe to lead her own orchestra. 268 00:16:55,640 --> 00:17:00,640 The Klein Orkest was based here at the Concertgebouw, the home 269 00:17:00,680 --> 00:17:03,560 of classical music in the Netherlands. In the years 270 00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:05,280 leading up to the war, 271 00:17:05,320 --> 00:17:08,280 Henry Heineken, the head of the famous brewery, 272 00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:11,360 was the chairman of the Concertgebouw. 273 00:17:11,400 --> 00:17:14,320 I've come to meet his granddaughter, Charlene. 274 00:17:25,120 --> 00:17:26,640 Brilliant. 275 00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:32,760 And of course, Frieda performed here at the Concertgebouw. 276 00:17:32,800 --> 00:17:36,600 And obviously the Nazis came because they liked to pretend 277 00:17:36,640 --> 00:17:39,040 they were cultured, even if they weren't! 278 00:17:39,080 --> 00:17:40,560 Yes, they made their own rules. 279 00:17:40,600 --> 00:17:42,640 But one evening, they had 280 00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:45,520 Arthur SeyssÐInquart come for a concert. 281 00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:51,040 My grandfather had to shake the man's hand. 282 00:17:51,080 --> 00:17:54,120 And after he did so, he turned to one of his guests and said, 283 00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:58,400 "Now I've got to wash my hands," loud enough for everybody to hear. 284 00:17:59,760 --> 00:18:02,040 And it's not necessary to say, he didn't stay 285 00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:04,200 in his position for long. They got rid... 286 00:18:04,240 --> 00:18:06,560 They got rid of him. Exactly. 287 00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:13,960 And Frieda - she joined the orchestra, 288 00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:15,760 which was about 17 or 18. 289 00:18:15,800 --> 00:18:20,280 She was very young. And became the principal cellist, but she, yes, 290 00:18:20,320 --> 00:18:24,200 she had that post, but of course she was Jewish, and - at least, 291 00:18:24,240 --> 00:18:25,920 her father was Jewish. Uh-huh. 292 00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:28,320 And almost all the Orkest, 293 00:18:28,360 --> 00:18:31,120 the little orchestra, was Jewish too. Exactly. 294 00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:35,440 So she, to use a pun, disbanded the band. 295 00:18:35,480 --> 00:18:39,280 I said to the orchestra, "Boys, there is no orchestra." 296 00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:42,600 "We have never existed." 297 00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:46,320 And I just completely disappeared from the musical life. 298 00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:51,840 And immediately started to prepare myself to do other things. 299 00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:54,480 Is that when she started, when she joined the Resistance 300 00:18:54,520 --> 00:18:55,760 and was at the... 301 00:18:55,800 --> 00:18:58,040 Well, this is a sweet thing. 302 00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:03,000 She, she had a lover earlier, who was Russian, who had escaped 303 00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:06,480 from the revolution, who was called Ellen Schwartz. 304 00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:08,920 And she'd come to the Netherlands. 305 00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:12,520 And then she wanted to go back to Russia, but she didn't have a 306 00:19:12,560 --> 00:19:14,880 visa and the Dutch wouldn't give her one. 307 00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:16,520 This was before the Nazis. 308 00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:18,720 It's a long time before the Nazis. 309 00:19:18,760 --> 00:19:23,040 And so Frieda with that deep sense of "This is wrong, 310 00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:25,160 "I'm going to, that's unfair..." 311 00:19:25,200 --> 00:19:27,240 Said, "I'm going to make her a visa." 312 00:19:27,280 --> 00:19:31,600 The Dutch government made the wrong decision. 313 00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:36,920 Do not give a person her papers because she was originally Russian. 314 00:19:36,960 --> 00:19:39,160 So I took the law in my hand 315 00:19:39,200 --> 00:19:42,520 and changed it and create, of course, 316 00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:44,000 a danger for myself. 317 00:19:44,040 --> 00:19:47,120 It was always on the edge, but I liked that. 318 00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:52,160 Then, during the occupation, she started to forge documents 319 00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:55,240 to make life easier for the Jewish side. 320 00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:58,560 And she had plenty of non-Jewish friends, of course, and she asked 321 00:19:58,600 --> 00:20:02,160 them to "lose" their official documents. 322 00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:03,720 So they had to reapply. 323 00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:05,480 And she kept... 324 00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:08,120 And so she was able to alter them for friends. 325 00:20:08,160 --> 00:20:09,800 It was amazing, 326 00:20:09,840 --> 00:20:13,800 her, her, her really strong feeling about unfairness and a hatred 327 00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:18,400 of... Really, she was so brave standing up for these... 328 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:21,800 Because I think... ..for these principles. That's what you need, isn't it, 329 00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:24,800 to be this kind of a hero that she was, that Willem was, 330 00:20:24,840 --> 00:20:27,960 is you need more than just, "I hate the Nazis." 331 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:30,720 You have to have a kind of fury inside you. Yeah. 332 00:20:30,760 --> 00:20:32,000 You need that? 333 00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:33,560 Definitely had that. Yeah. 334 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:35,400 Next, Seyss-Inquart 335 00:20:35,440 --> 00:20:39,160 made every artist sign up to what he called the 336 00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:42,520 Kultuurkamer, the Chamber of Culture. 337 00:20:42,560 --> 00:20:45,480 Those who didn't sign, were unable to work. 338 00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:49,280 It meant that artists were forced to produce work with the Nazi 339 00:20:49,320 --> 00:20:50,960 seal of approval. 340 00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:54,120 It was collaboration by any other name. 341 00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:59,080 As a result, artists like Willem and Frida were driven underground. 342 00:20:59,120 --> 00:21:00,760 This is rather a lovely cafe. 343 00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:04,040 Is it a typical kind of artists' cafe? Yeah. 344 00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:07,200 And so characters like Willem would come to a place like this? 345 00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:11,720 Frieda Belinfante went to a place called - a club called The Circle. 346 00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:13,360 The Kring. 347 00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:14,800 The Kring. 348 00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:19,120 That was a cafe where you could have all the magazines and go 349 00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:22,240 in the afternoon, when you're still working and where you found 350 00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:25,640 each other and when you take a little drink or find 351 00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:27,520 the newspapers and read. 352 00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:31,800 I really led a little bit of a different kind of life, 353 00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:35,120 something that was really up my alley. 354 00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:38,840 There she visited and read books there and met people. 355 00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:44,760 And she was approached by Willem Sandberg, who knew her as the 356 00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:47,200 conductor of a chamber orchestra. 357 00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:49,480 Sandberg was the curator 358 00:21:49,520 --> 00:21:52,840 of the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art. 359 00:21:52,880 --> 00:21:54,680 Just before the occupation, 360 00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:59,560 he had had the foresight to have a huge bunker dug in the coastal dunes 361 00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:03,440 to hide the country's great works of art from the Nazis. 362 00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:07,560 In fact, this is where The Night Watch spent the war. 363 00:22:20,360 --> 00:22:23,400 And they became friends, and she became friends 364 00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:28,880 with the friends of Sandberg, Willem Arondeus and Gerrit van der Veen. 365 00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:31,680 Gerrit van der Veen was a sculptor. 366 00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:35,200 He, too, was doing his bit to fight the Nazis. 367 00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:39,000 Like Willem, he published an underground pamphlet - 368 00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:42,080 De Vrije Kunstenaar, the Free Artist. 369 00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:48,400 He and a group of friends would meet late at night and in a 370 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:52,920 party-like atmosphere fuelled by booze and amphetamines, 371 00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:54,960 would stay up until dawn, 372 00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:57,520 forging identity cards. 373 00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:04,360 I was told what they were doing and I was telling them 374 00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:05,800 what I was doing. 375 00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:09,120 And so we got all acquainted. 376 00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:10,680 So circle is the right word. 377 00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:13,640 It was a circle of - that met like ripples, kind 378 00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,440 of intersecting. For Willem, 379 00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:20,880 it also gave him a sense of family that he'd never had, really, 380 00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:25,120 since his father kicked him out when he came out as gay to him. Yeah. 381 00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:26,840 He was called Ticky. 382 00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:29,680 We all called him Ticky. 383 00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:32,640 And he was very shy. 384 00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:36,600 Very shy and a kind of an inferiority complex. 385 00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:40,520 He didn't think he was good enough for this or that. 386 00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:44,200 And I was not a close friend of his before, but in that group 387 00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:46,320 we became very close. 388 00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:52,160 So close, in fact, that Frieda recognised that Willem was a man 389 00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:54,240 she could trust. 390 00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:57,840 This was William's chance to make a real difference. 391 00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:02,480 He had the artistic skills and meticulous eye she needed 392 00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:05,320 to speed up the forging process. 393 00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:11,200 We worked as a team and went out together or had people come 394 00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:12,920 to my house. 395 00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:15,920 And they would - I would take the fingerprint and he would 396 00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:17,520 do something else. 397 00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:21,840 He felt no longer an outcast, and he felt no longer excluded 398 00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:25,000 from the real society. 399 00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:28,800 He was no longer useless, he thought. Yeah. 400 00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:31,440 So it was a bunch of friends. 401 00:24:31,480 --> 00:24:33,560 Because he'd been doubly lonely, hadn't he? 402 00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:36,200 Because he had no real family? No. 403 00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:41,880 And also he had sent his - the love of his life, Jan, back to Apeldoorn. 404 00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,120 In the benefit of Jan. 405 00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:45,560 He loved Jan. 406 00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:49,240 And he didn't want Jan to live in hiding. 407 00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:52,960 Didn't want Jan to live in danger. 408 00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,960 One time we had a conversation about the danger 409 00:24:57,000 --> 00:24:58,800 that was over our head. 410 00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:01,920 And I said, or, he said, 411 00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:06,080 "Do you think that we see the end 412 00:25:06,120 --> 00:25:08,080 "of this war?" 413 00:25:08,120 --> 00:25:10,680 And I said, "I don't think so." 414 00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:13,440 He said, "I don't, either." 415 00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:16,480 And he said, "Do you mind?" 416 00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:19,080 And I said, "No, I don't." 417 00:25:19,120 --> 00:25:20,920 He said, "I don't, either." 418 00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:26,720 So I knew exactly that I had a partner who had the same point of 419 00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:29,280 view that I had. 420 00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:34,080 And Jan lived the rest of his life without ever seeing Willem again. 421 00:25:34,120 --> 00:25:36,680 And what happened to him, exactly? 422 00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:39,360 Do you know? He married. Yeah. Had children. 423 00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:40,640 He had a family. 424 00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:42,720 And I spoke to his family. 425 00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:44,560 He was already dead, then. 426 00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:50,360 And I told his eldest, eldest daughter, do you know your father 427 00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:52,840 lived with a man for several years? 428 00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:55,160 How did she respond? 429 00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:56,920 She was not surprised. 430 00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:01,240 Really? She told me that her father was a quiet, silent man 431 00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:04,960 and that every year when the commemoration in Holland 432 00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:09,800 of the victims of the war were commemorated... 433 00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:11,120 Yes. 434 00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:16,440 ..then her father became in that period nervous, distracted 435 00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:18,080 and very sad. 436 00:26:18,120 --> 00:26:19,800 Every year. 437 00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:22,040 So we imagine he was thinking of Willem. 438 00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:24,960 Yeah. How extraordinary. Yeah. 439 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:29,120 Unsurprisingly, there were plenty of people who welcomed 440 00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:33,240 the Nazis. Just like Mosley's Blackshirts in Britain, 441 00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:37,880 the Dutch National Socialists, Anton Mussert's NSB, 442 00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,360 had thousands of supporters. 443 00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:46,960 Seyss-Inquart was smart enough to use Anton Mussert's paramilitary 444 00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,760 units to do his dirty work. 445 00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,160 Things began to escalate. 446 00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:57,880 Jews started to fight back, and that led to a general strike. 447 00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,920 Seyss-Inquart's response was savage. 448 00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:06,200 The Reichskommissar immediately slapped even more restrictions 449 00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:07,640 on the Jews. 450 00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:10,080 Now they were barred from restaurants 451 00:27:10,120 --> 00:27:12,280 and their businesses were closed. 452 00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:16,680 Finally, every Jew in the Netherlands was forced to wear 453 00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:21,360 the Yellow Star of David, so that they could be openly identified. 454 00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,600 Willem Sandberg, the man who had saved those artworks 455 00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:38,840 from the Nazis, formed the Artists Resistance. 456 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:42,320 He realised that in order to mass-produce fake identity cards, 457 00:27:42,360 --> 00:27:46,120 Willem, Frida and van der Veen had to work together. 458 00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:51,480 But making more fake IDs is more than a question of simply 459 00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,080 cranking-up the printing presses. 460 00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:07,440 So this is one of the original pieces they used during the war. 461 00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:11,200 And that's a photograph and a stamp and two sorts of stamp, 462 00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:12,560 like a postage stamp. 463 00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,480 There were a lot of security measures to make sure 464 00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,040 it was very hard to forge identity cards. 465 00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:20,360 Oh, it's the other side. Fingerprints? 466 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,080 Yes. It's a real thing, isn't it? 467 00:28:23,120 --> 00:28:28,280 They have two fingerprints, one on the paper and one on the back 468 00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:29,840 of the photograph. 469 00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,480 And on top of the photograph, they would place a seal. 470 00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:35,000 So it would... 471 00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:38,920 You would have your last name, your first names and date 472 00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,880 of birth, place of birth, your nationality, 473 00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:45,320 who you were married to, what your occupation 474 00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:47,280 was when it was issued. 475 00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:53,680 And an autograph of the city clerk who issued your identity cards. 476 00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:55,480 All kinds of numbers here. 477 00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:59,080 So every city has its own unique number. 478 00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:02,160 So, for example, A35 would be Amsterdam. 479 00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,880 And the number after 835 would be your personal ID number. 480 00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:11,480 So this is number 10,000 from Amsterdam. 481 00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:15,400 The Dutch identity card was one of the only ones that used 482 00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:19,640 watermarks, so it would be very hard to forge these watermarks. 483 00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:21,280 Can we see them? 484 00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:22,840 This... Issue... 485 00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:24,160 Hold it. 486 00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:25,640 Oh, there's the light. 487 00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:28,000 You can see... Just like a banknote. 488 00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:31,160 Yes. Yes, the three lions. 489 00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:33,600 So they are. With a sword and a crown. 490 00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:38,440 So the Resistance had a hard time to forge these cards. 491 00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,040 Yeah, they were artists, not scientists. Exactly. 492 00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:44,280 So they had to use the perfect type of paper. 493 00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:47,280 Perfect type of ink. And that was nearly impossible. 494 00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:49,000 Did they try? I mean, they must have. 495 00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:50,600 Yes, they did try. 496 00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:52,520 Yeah. And some succeeded. 497 00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,800 And some forgeries are better than other ones, of course. 498 00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,800 This is one of the earlier forgeries, the Resistance made. 499 00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:01,680 Done by the artists? 500 00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:03,280 Yes. The Resistance. 501 00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:07,680 These were made by the Resistance group of Gerrit van der Veen. 502 00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:11,800 You can clearly see why this is one of the worst. 503 00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:16,640 Oh, there's no... Is that...? There's no watermark that I can see. 504 00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:18,320 No. So... 505 00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,080 ah, so that's a dead giveaway, because the patrolman would... 506 00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:23,720 They would hold it up against the light 507 00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:27,280 and have a look at the lions, if they were there or not. 508 00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:29,680 So this would be one of the earliest. 509 00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,160 So the Resistance probably didn't know how to make 510 00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:34,880 the watermark yet. 511 00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:38,880 At first, they tried to cut out lions and place them between two 512 00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:40,720 sheets of paper. Ah. 513 00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:43,600 So if you would hold it up against the lights, you would still see 514 00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:45,200 the three lions. 515 00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:48,440 But the thickness in paper... A bit of a giveaway. 516 00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:50,160 It was a giveaway. 517 00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:53,680 You could feel there was something wrong with it. 518 00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:59,000 So Sandberg understood immediately that a new approach was needed 519 00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:04,760 because the forgeries they made were good, but they were not good enough. 520 00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:08,600 So Sandberg brought in another friend, a professional printer 521 00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:10,360 called Franz du Vere. 522 00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,920 And Franz and Sandberg, with the others, tried 523 00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:18,120 to perfect the watermark by experimenting with different paper 524 00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:22,760 slurries and different cut-outs of the lion for the watermark. 525 00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:25,800 So they would use a printing press? Yes. 526 00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:29,240 The paper still had to go through the press six times 527 00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,360 and it was a lengthy process to perfect the watermarks 528 00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:35,760 in the forgeries, and eventually it worked out. 529 00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:47,440 This is one of the better forgeries the Resistance made. 530 00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:49,320 If you hold it... 531 00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:50,640 On the back... 532 00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:51,960 Yes. ..see the watermark? 533 00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,280 Yes, yes, I can. 534 00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:57,000 Yes. There are the lions. 535 00:31:57,040 --> 00:31:58,400 Wow. 536 00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:01,120 Marvellous. 537 00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:03,080 So they really managed to get there. 538 00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:08,960 They started to produce superb imitations, fakes. Yeah. 539 00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:13,760 And some German officials even told Sandberg, for example, 540 00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:19,320 that these forgeries that Franz in his group, with van der Veen, 541 00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:21,840 made during the war, were the best they had ever seen. 542 00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:23,040 Wow. 543 00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,760 What a fabulous thing for Sandberg to hear. 544 00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:27,800 He must have been very pleased. 545 00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:31,840 It was a great, a great vindication of all that work and all 546 00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:35,120 that effort. And especially to hear that from an enemy. 547 00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:39,080 Yes. That's the most astonishing part. Isn't it? 548 00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:40,920 That's, that's remarkable. 549 00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:43,120 Oh, I don't like that. What's that? 550 00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:44,880 That can't be what I think it is. 551 00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,120 I thought you might be interested in seeing this. 552 00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:49,640 This is one of the original Stars of David 553 00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:51,600 the Jews had to wear during the war. 554 00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,040 That's an ugly thing, isn't it? 555 00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:57,680 Gosh, I've seen it in film, obviously, 556 00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:01,880 who hasn't? And archive. And never actually seen the real one. 557 00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:03,880 That's a horrible thing. 558 00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:08,040 You know, that's one of the stains on human history, isn't it? 559 00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,040 Yes, it really is. Grotesque. Grotesque. 560 00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:12,400 Golly. 561 00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:23,360 It's quite extraordinary what the Artists Resistance 562 00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,480 were doing. Although du Vere and Sandberg 563 00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:28,880 were both professional printers, 564 00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:33,480 it was still a monumental task to make fake IDs 565 00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:36,200 at that sort of scale. 566 00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:38,440 I'm in awe of them. 567 00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:44,000 Not so much their skills as the fact that they were prepared 568 00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:47,240 to put their lives in danger for the sake of people 569 00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:49,160 they didn't even know. 570 00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:50,560 Pure altruism. 571 00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:59,680 See, all the time that I was still working in Holland, I had contact 572 00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:01,160 with Sandberg. 573 00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:06,000 And one time he asked me, he said, "We are very short of money, 574 00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:12,640 "can you - do you have any, any source that you can help us with money?" 575 00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:17,680 And I said, "Well, I have some people that I know are very wealthy." 576 00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,720 I don't think I've seen so much copper outside a police station. 577 00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:26,440 It's amazing. It's beautiful, isn't it? 578 00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:27,840 It's wonderful. 579 00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:34,040 And Frieda came here, risking everything. 580 00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:37,440 I know, because don't forget, the brewery was really watched 581 00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:41,280 very carefully by the Germans, and they liked the idea 582 00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:43,240 of the brewery continuing. 583 00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:44,800 And I think Nazis drink beer too. 584 00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,960 Yeah. But my grandfather was very strictly observed, and... 585 00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,560 And Frieda took her life into her hands going to 586 00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:57,600 the senior industrialist, who might have informed on her. 587 00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,440 I went to see Mr Heineken. 588 00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:04,200 And asked him, 589 00:35:04,240 --> 00:35:07,600 could he help us financially, 590 00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:10,040 And he said, "How come you trust me?" 591 00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:15,520 I said, "Well, I go by faces. 592 00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:17,160 "That's all I have." 593 00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:23,040 But she had to obviously take that step and walk into the office. 594 00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:27,520 And I suppose we have to put our minds into the period 595 00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:31,320 and the area of distrust that must have settled like a pall of smoke 596 00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:34,960 over all Occupied Europe. Yeah. 597 00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:38,480 Obviously, I guess the whole life was a risk in those days, 598 00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:42,440 and I think you just kind of had to go with your instincts. 599 00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:45,600 I didn't know him well, but I knew he was a music lover, 600 00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:50,160 and I had an instinctive feeling that he was on the right side. 601 00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:56,520 But, you know, you have to go by how you feel, I didn't know him. 602 00:35:56,560 --> 00:35:58,400 In the end, that's it, isn't it? 603 00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:02,440 It's the human impulse that - I think I can trust that face. 604 00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:05,640 And they came to this extraordinary bargain. 605 00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,120 He said, "You're right." 606 00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:11,600 He said, 607 00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:16,280 "But, you know, I have a problem because I have my office riddled 608 00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:22,280 "with Germans, looking over my shoulder, breathing down my neck, 609 00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,880 "wanting to know everything about where the money comes 610 00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:28,080 "from that is spent." 611 00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:31,920 He said, "I'm not my own boss any more. 612 00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:34,600 "Unless," he said, "you have an idea." 613 00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:37,600 I said, "Maybe I do." 614 00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:39,320 He said, "You do?" 615 00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:42,320 I said, "Yes. 616 00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:44,680 "I have an idea - buy my cello." 617 00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:50,800 The cello was not worth very much, but he ended up managing to pay, 618 00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:55,480 I think, the equivalent of 125,000 euros, today, for a cello, 619 00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:58,120 which was probably worth a thousand. 620 00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,760 So I brought my cello and he gave me the money. 621 00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:04,960 And that money could be used...? 622 00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:07,480 Well, they kept the printing presses rolling 623 00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,840 for, for the, for the documents that they were falsifying. 624 00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,160 And they also supported people who were keeping people hidden. 625 00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,120 I think it was, I think it made a huge, big difference. 626 00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:19,920 And your grandfather, Henry. Harry...? 627 00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:21,280 Yeah, known as Henry. 628 00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:22,600 But at home, he was Harry. 629 00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,360 Right! Did you speak to him? You knew him? I knew him. 630 00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:26,960 Did you speak about the war? 631 00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:28,360 Not really, no. 632 00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:29,680 I think people didn't. 633 00:37:29,720 --> 00:37:32,200 Not nearly as much as people might have assumed. 634 00:37:32,240 --> 00:37:35,120 And I think that it was a lot of - wonderful things were done 635 00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:36,520 during the war, 636 00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:38,080 he wasn't exceptional. 637 00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:41,560 It was, it was many people who gave what they could and did 638 00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,480 what they could, but they didn't talk about it much, afterwards. 639 00:37:55,640 --> 00:38:00,560 With the Artists Resistance now working with master printer Franz du Vere, 640 00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:05,400 they were able to produce identity cards on a vast scale, 641 00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:08,440 saving thousands of Jewish lives. 642 00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:10,880 But this created a huge problem. 643 00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:13,040 The serial numbers on the cards 644 00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:17,880 didn't match the duplicate records held in the population registry. 645 00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:22,040 A simple cross-check by the Nazis condemned anyone carrying 646 00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:25,600 a false ID card to deportation. 647 00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:26,920 Or worse. 648 00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:33,880 Willem, Frieda and Gerrit met at Sandberg's house 649 00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:35,800 to discuss the problem. 650 00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:40,200 And that night, they came up with a quite extraordinary idea. 651 00:38:41,720 --> 00:38:44,640 They would blow up the population registry. 652 00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:55,120 And this the main entrance. 653 00:38:55,160 --> 00:39:00,480 And there were 20 filing cabinets. Right. And here were the cards. 654 00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:04,320 Koen Limperg, an architect, 655 00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:06,360 he made this whole plan of this. 656 00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:09,240 Where are the cupboards? Where is the stairs to 657 00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:10,920 upstairs? What is upstairs? 658 00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:15,880 The building was guarded by the Germans inside and outside. 659 00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:18,000 I know, it was guarded. 660 00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:19,480 We all knew that. They were 661 00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:22,240 expecting all kinds of things from the Dutch. 662 00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:26,040 They make a plan, they should disguise as policemen. 663 00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:31,360 That was the best, they thought, the best opportunity to get inside. 664 00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,600 We had to have a tailor make two police uniforms. 665 00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:37,560 Sjoerd has to make uniforms. 666 00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:39,600 Sjoerd? Sjoerd Bakker. 667 00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:41,520 Willem asked him, "Sjoerd, 668 00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:44,480 "would you make the uniforms immediately?" 669 00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:48,600 They couldn't make the police caps properly. 670 00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:51,520 So Rudi Bloemgarten knew Cornelius Roos, 671 00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:52,680 a policeman! A policeman! 672 00:39:52,720 --> 00:39:54,040 Dutch policeman. 673 00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:57,080 And he borrowed caps to make them to imitate. 674 00:39:57,120 --> 00:39:59,960 Arondeus was the captain, van der Veen 675 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,080 was the lieutenant, and there were four policemen. 676 00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:08,440 The leader of the attack actually was, was Arondeus, and the next man 677 00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:11,160 to him was Gerrit van der Veen. So... 678 00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:13,080 ..and is Frieda one of the nine? 679 00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:14,920 No, Frieda is a woman. 680 00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:18,680 So Sandberg said, "We don't want a woman in the group." 681 00:40:18,720 --> 00:40:22,120 And I think that is the superiority of the men. 682 00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:27,440 That is not quite dealt with in this world. 683 00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:29,240 I think eventually it will be. 684 00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:34,760 Hoogsteder was a friend and courier of Arondeus. 685 00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:37,320 He fetched the explosive. 686 00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:39,600 And they had benzole. 687 00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:42,360 Benzole is like a fluid...? 688 00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:44,360 Like a fluid... 689 00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:47,480 Arondeus and Frieda said, "We don't want to kill anybody." 690 00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:51,160 No violence, no deaths, no injuries. 691 00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:52,480 "We are not like them." 692 00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:53,800 "We are not like them." 693 00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:56,280 That's beautiful. "We are not like them." 694 00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,600 And if there were guards, how would they deal with them 695 00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:00,200 if they couldn't be hurt? 696 00:41:00,240 --> 00:41:02,320 The injections. Oh, inject them. 697 00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:05,520 With, with some sort of sedative to send them to sleep? 698 00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:06,800 Yes. 699 00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:08,600 And how would they get hold of that? 700 00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,080 Well, a friend of a friend of a friend. 701 00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:13,360 And they knew how to do the injection. 702 00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:20,920 See, we couldn't be as selective because we needed so many special 703 00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:25,920 things that nobody could provide without asking 704 00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:28,320 maybe an acquaintance. 705 00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:30,560 It was - there were too many people involved, 706 00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:34,760 in other words. There were so many people involved that it 707 00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:37,080 became very dangerous. 708 00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:41,400 So the group of artists turn themselves 709 00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:43,320 into a group of saboteurs. Yes. 710 00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:06,960 I like to think of the raid as a bit like a heist movie. 711 00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:10,680 The gang has gone over the plans again and again. 712 00:42:10,720 --> 00:42:15,040 Contingencies and variables have been taken into account. 713 00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:21,640 But then, by the 12th of March, 1943, they're finally ready. 714 00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:29,080 So there it is. 715 00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:30,800 The objective. 716 00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:35,440 Since before the war, this had been the population registry. 717 00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:40,440 And now it was the target of Willem's ambitious plan. 718 00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:49,400 Captain Arondeus and Lieutenant van der Veen have a clever cover 719 00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:53,360 story prepared just in case they're challenged. 720 00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:59,600 They have arrested five men carrying explosives and benzole. 721 00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:05,160 However, all this proves unnecessary because as the registry office comes 722 00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:09,400 into sight, they hear gunshots and screams coming from the 723 00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:11,720 Jewish Quarter just across the road. 724 00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,920 The streets are suddenly swarming with troops. 725 00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:19,720 And Willem realises there's nothing for it but to abandon the raid. 726 00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:31,480 But they've learned a lot. 727 00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:35,680 There's too much to carry and they need more uniforms. 728 00:43:35,720 --> 00:43:40,240 Willem asks Joop Hoogsteder to find extra police caps. 729 00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:43,960 Joop asks his friend, van der Leg, who asks another 730 00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:46,480 friend, Peter Tijnesen. 731 00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:50,320 But what he doesn't know is that Tijnesen is a member 732 00:43:50,360 --> 00:43:53,960 of the National Socialist Party, a fascist. 733 00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:02,640 March the 22nd, and they're ready again. 734 00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:05,000 But this time they're better prepared. 735 00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:08,880 They now have four extra men in uniform, and Joop is waiting 736 00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:11,880 outside the population registry with the benzole. 737 00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:15,160 But then, just as they're crossing the bridge, they see Joop 738 00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:16,760 racing towards them. 739 00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:21,040 He says he's seen some cleaners arriving at the registry. 740 00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:24,480 And of course, Willem won't let innocent people get hurt, 741 00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:26,960 so they have to call it off again. 742 00:44:34,720 --> 00:44:38,240 March the 27th, third-time lucky. 743 00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:41,280 As they cross the bridge, the target is once 744 00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:43,440 again within sight. 745 00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:47,960 There are two guards on duty outside the population registry. 746 00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:53,200 "Captain" Arondeus draws a deep breath and marches over. 747 00:44:53,240 --> 00:44:57,240 He informs them that he has received a tip-off that there 748 00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:00,000 are explosives hidden upstairs. 749 00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,440 The guards escort them into the building, but as soon 750 00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:06,680 as they're inside, Willem draws a gun. 751 00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:11,840 Willem keeps the guards covered while the gang drugs them, strips 752 00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:13,880 them, and trusses them up. 753 00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:17,320 Two of the gang dress in the guards' uniforms and take up position 754 00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:20,200 outside, in case a German patrol arrives. 755 00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,720 And then the Germans do show up. 756 00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:26,280 Four of them. 757 00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:27,880 Willem takes control. 758 00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:29,920 He holds them at gunpoint. 759 00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:34,040 But the medics have only got enough sedative for three of them, 760 00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:37,920 so they're forced to truss the fourth one up un-sedated. 761 00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:41,040 And as they're carrying them all out into the garden, the last one 762 00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:43,120 struggles like mad. 763 00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:48,760 And then Willem realises that it's only a matter of time 764 00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:53,520 before the Germans' comrades notice that the patrol hasn't returned. 765 00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:57,440 So they slosh the benzole all over the piles of record cards, 766 00:45:57,480 --> 00:45:59,560 and light the fuse wire. 767 00:46:12,240 --> 00:46:15,040 Willem had one more trick up his sleeve. 768 00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:17,840 He had friends in the fire brigade. 769 00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:20,920 He told them to take their time. 770 00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:25,280 And when they did finally arrive, they discovered that Willem had hung 771 00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:31,600 signs outside that read Danger Of Explosion, Do Not Enter. 772 00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:37,560 The perfect excuse to stand back and let the building burn for hours. 773 00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:53,480 As news of the bombing spread, the people of Amsterdam placed 774 00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:55,880 single flowers in their windows. 775 00:46:55,920 --> 00:47:00,160 Their little way of giving the Nazis the finger. 776 00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:04,800 Showing solidarity with that defiant act of sabotage. 777 00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:11,120 Ah-ha. We see... 778 00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:13,120 Oh, yes. 779 00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:15,160 ..some of the pictures of the damage. 780 00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:17,480 That's very pleasing. Yeah. 781 00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:20,400 Thought it was an enormous success. 782 00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:22,800 And it was. Was everything destroyed? 783 00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:25,040 No, unfortunately not. 784 00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:30,760 In the end, it turned out that only 50% was definitely destroyed. 785 00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:32,160 Right. 786 00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:34,280 And the rest could be restored. 787 00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:37,880 And there was a shadow archive in The Hague. 788 00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:45,520 But all the same, it took five months to restore everything 789 00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:50,080 and to put a registry office in operation again. 790 00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:54,920 But most important effect was that it really gave 791 00:47:54,960 --> 00:48:00,400 all of the Netherlands enormous moral boost. 792 00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:01,920 Everybody was excited. 793 00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:07,200 So it was also an enormous inspiration for people to resist. 794 00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,480 Then they announced a reward. 795 00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:20,760 This was published in all the newspapers. 796 00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:23,200 There was a reward of 10,000 797 00:48:23,240 --> 00:48:27,520 guilders for any information that led to the... 798 00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:30,000 That was quite a lot of money. Yes. 799 00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:34,360 You could say it's about 70,000 euros nowadays. 800 00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:36,600 That is a lot of money, yes. Yeah. Yeah. 801 00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:39,440 Huge. Oh, that's such a temptation. 802 00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:42,040 And did that work? 803 00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:44,200 Did they get results from that? 804 00:48:44,240 --> 00:48:46,480 Yes, unfortunately, yes. 805 00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:49,320 You know, Tijnesen... 806 00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:52,120 He... Peter... Peter Tijnesen. Yes. 807 00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:53,640 I've come across his name. 808 00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:58,040 He was a Dutch Nazi and he mentioned the name of Joop... 809 00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:00,400 Joop. ..Hoogsteder. 810 00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:02,160 Yes, I remember him. 811 00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:05,280 Yes. He was the one who talked too much. 812 00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:06,800 And.... 813 00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:09,640 So Joop was arrested and taken in and questioned? 814 00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:10,840 Yes. 815 00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:12,720 And he was terribly tortured. 816 00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:15,760 Oh, my goodness. And he couldn't held out. 817 00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:18,040 He was only older... Just older than a boy. 818 00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:20,440 He was. Yes. Yes. 21, I think. 819 00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:22,520 And he gave - he knew a lot. 820 00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:25,000 And he, he gave up... 821 00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:27,560 He mentioned a lot of names and addresses. 822 00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:30,360 And Willem, did they capture Willem straight away? 823 00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:32,440 Willem Arondeus. Yes. 824 00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:34,480 Willem was in hiding. Right. 825 00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:37,840 And Hoogsteder did mention the address. 826 00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:42,160 So on April 1, he was arrested there. 827 00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:44,720 His attitude was absolutely heroic. 828 00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:48,280 When he was arrested, 829 00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:51,080 they came in and they say, "In the name of Hitler, 830 00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:53,560 "we arrest you..." Follow us, or something. 831 00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:55,840 And he said, "In the name of the Queen of Holland, 832 00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:57,240 "I will follow you." 833 00:49:57,280 --> 00:50:00,200 I mean, he was not even startled. 834 00:50:00,240 --> 00:50:05,560 And then he turned to the policeman and he said, 835 00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:07,840 "I will warn you, 836 00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:10,960 "there will be a curse on you and your family members 837 00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:13,480 "for seven generations..." Wow! 838 00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:17,200 "..because of this criminal act of collaboration." 839 00:50:17,240 --> 00:50:20,400 Something marvellous happened to Willem Arondeus, didn't it? 840 00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:22,840 He became such a... He became, 841 00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:24,640 really, yes, 842 00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:26,440 he was always in doubt. 843 00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:29,280 And during the Occupation, 844 00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:32,200 yes... It gave him a purpose. Gave him a purpose. 845 00:50:32,240 --> 00:50:34,720 And he became very courageous. 846 00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:37,880 And so they started to raid addresses? 847 00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:39,760 Yeah, they started. 848 00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:45,200 And one by one, most of the people involved were arrested. 849 00:50:45,240 --> 00:50:48,600 They were put into solitary confinement first, 850 00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:51,040 and they were treated very badly. 851 00:50:51,080 --> 00:50:56,280 They were chained to the bed and not allowed to, to go 852 00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:58,560 to the toilet or anything. Oh! 853 00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:01,840 Only once a day, they were, they were shortly released. 854 00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:05,080 So it was a terrible, terrible situation. Really humiliated. 855 00:51:09,240 --> 00:51:16,040 They came to arrest Sandberg, but only his wife was at home. 856 00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:19,720 And she was able to warn him. 857 00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:21,800 And he was into hiding. 858 00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:23,520 He went into hiding. 859 00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:30,400 Van der Veen was in a place and nobody knew where he was, 860 00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:32,360 so he couldn't be betrayed. 861 00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:36,000 Later on, with another action, 862 00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:37,880 to release prisoners... 863 00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:41,400 Really? He tried to spring them, as we say, did he? 864 00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:44,480 Yes. He was caught and he was also shot. 865 00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:46,400 Ah, right. Later on. 866 00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:51,520 Frieda also was informed in time that they were looking 867 00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:53,800 for her. 868 00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:57,800 I knew something was wrong, so I better disappear. 869 00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:01,280 And that's why I wasn't arrested. 870 00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:07,200 Because they had my address, but they didn't get 871 00:52:07,240 --> 00:52:09,280 to my house early enough. 872 00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:13,920 And first of all, she disguised herself as a man. 873 00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:16,520 Ah, yes, I've got a picture, actually, I remember. OK. 874 00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:19,600 I came across it somewhere and I put it in my folder here. 875 00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:21,360 You know the picture? Yes. 876 00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:22,800 It's rather wonderful, isn't it? 877 00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:24,200 Yeah. Look at that. 878 00:52:24,240 --> 00:52:25,920 Yeah, I know the picture. 879 00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:31,760 For three months, I was disguised as a man, and very successfully 880 00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:36,200 so, because I lived near... At number 64 and my mother 881 00:52:36,240 --> 00:52:37,760 lived at 44. 882 00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:41,480 And I passed my mother several times during that time, 883 00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:44,520 and she never recognised me. 884 00:52:45,720 --> 00:52:49,080 I also didn't take my hat off for her, but she wouldn't 885 00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:51,440 have recognised me anyway. 886 00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:04,480 Frieda escaped to Switzerland. 887 00:53:04,520 --> 00:53:08,440 She returned home briefly after the war to collect her cello 888 00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:12,640 from Henry Heineken, then sailed to America, where she lived 889 00:53:12,680 --> 00:53:14,640 for the rest of her life. 890 00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:18,360 Once again, she rose to lead her own orchestra. 891 00:53:28,520 --> 00:53:32,160 Just before she died, in March 1995, 892 00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:34,880 she wrote, "To all my friends 893 00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:38,240 "and students, as I leave this Earth, 894 00:53:38,280 --> 00:53:40,960 "I hope, rather than being sad, 895 00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:44,960 "you can share my gratitude for a beautiful life. 896 00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:47,360 "Of which you have all been a part." 897 00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:18,880 It was here on the 18th of June, 1943, that the trial of 898 00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:23,080 Willem Arondeus and his fellow conspirators took place. 899 00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:33,560 The first words I can see on this page are Waffen SS. Yeah. 900 00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:36,440 Sends a bit of a chill through the spine, doesn't it? 901 00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,080 My goodness. And there he is. Yes. 902 00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:42,040 Number one. Willem JC Arondeus, 903 00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:45,080 "Kunstmaler" - artist, painter. Yeah. 904 00:54:45,120 --> 00:54:48,840 All the people on the list, they didn't know who was Willem Arondeus. 905 00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:51,360 They know, they hardly knew each other. Aside 906 00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:52,880 from the central gang... No. 907 00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:55,440 ..the others of the 28 were not connected enough. In the 908 00:54:55,480 --> 00:55:00,080 trial, they see him for the first time, and they didn't know his name. 909 00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:01,560 Yes. 910 00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:03,560 And he set the tone for the trial. 911 00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:05,080 He was fearless. 912 00:55:05,120 --> 00:55:07,920 He stand up, he mocked... 913 00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:10,320 He was brutal to the judge. Really? 914 00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:12,840 Yes. What had he to lose? 915 00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:15,040 Oh, that's true. Yeah. 916 00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:18,040 He knew he was going to die. Yes. Yeah. 917 00:55:18,080 --> 00:55:21,200 So did he encourage the others to behave like that as well, do you think? 918 00:55:21,240 --> 00:55:22,600 No. 919 00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:24,560 He took all the blame on him. 920 00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:26,200 Really? 921 00:55:26,240 --> 00:55:28,280 He said, "It was my idea for this." 922 00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:30,360 "All right? 923 00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:33,600 "And I invited the others to help me." 924 00:55:33,640 --> 00:55:35,640 "But they're not guilty. 925 00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:37,320 "I'm the one... 926 00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:39,720 Wow, that's astonishing. 927 00:55:46,360 --> 00:55:49,200 I guess there was no chance that any of them would really get 928 00:55:49,240 --> 00:55:52,360 off, was there? No-one. No. No. 929 00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:55,040 And so how long did the trial last? Just... 930 00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:56,400 Just one day. 931 00:55:56,440 --> 00:55:59,000 At the end of the day, the verdicts were spoken. 932 00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:02,640 And how many of them were sentenced to death? 933 00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:04,480 12. 12. 934 00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:05,760 Yes. 935 00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:08,120 Right, gosh. 936 00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:11,240 I have one last witness from Anje Roos. 937 00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:12,760 Anje Roos. 938 00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:15,200 She was the sister of Cornelius Roos. 939 00:56:15,240 --> 00:56:16,400 He was sentenced to death. 940 00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:19,200 You can... Maybe you can read it. 941 00:56:19,240 --> 00:56:21,800 Oh, good, It's in English! 942 00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:25,040 "Arondeus was very impressive. 943 00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:26,920 "A beautiful speech. 944 00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:30,160 He described the lawlessness and injustice that people 945 00:56:30,200 --> 00:56:34,640 "were suffering and how he could not go along with that and that 946 00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:36,720 "he did not stand alone. 947 00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:40,440 "He was very calm, but he would address the Germans in a mocking 948 00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:42,920 "tone of voice." 949 00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:46,320 I think that's, that's magnificent. 950 00:56:46,360 --> 00:56:49,960 What a man, really. Yes. To be defiant like that to the end, 951 00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:52,840 and yet to be calm when he needed to be, 952 00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:56,160 and to speak directly about why 953 00:56:56,200 --> 00:56:59,880 you should stand up to such a tyranny. Yeah. 954 00:56:59,920 --> 00:57:01,160 He was a real hero. 955 00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:02,400 It's very moving. 956 00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:21,680 As the day of their execution approached, the men 957 00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:25,000 were all allowed one final request. 958 00:57:26,880 --> 00:57:31,240 Sjoerd asked for a pink shirt to wear for his execution. 959 00:57:31,280 --> 00:57:32,760 His favourite colour. 960 00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:36,720 Willem wanted a meringue pie, 961 00:57:36,760 --> 00:57:38,600 to share with his friends. 962 00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:46,040 Willem left 500 guilders to Jan, the love of his life. 963 00:57:46,080 --> 00:57:50,480 Willem would never know that Jan had named his son after him. 964 00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:03,240 Surprisingly, the mood in the cells was upbeat. 965 00:58:03,280 --> 00:58:06,960 They were telling stories and singing songs. 966 00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:12,120 And Willem was their inspiration, their leader, their hero. 967 00:58:18,680 --> 00:58:20,720 Lau Mazirel, 968 00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:23,600 a lawyer sympathetic to the Resistance cause, 969 00:58:23,640 --> 00:58:26,120 was Willem's final visitor. 970 00:58:26,160 --> 00:58:29,680 Lau said later that Willem gave her the impression 971 00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:31,920 that he was truly happy. 972 00:58:39,960 --> 00:58:45,040 Willem said something to Lau that day that gives me goose bumps. 973 00:58:45,080 --> 00:58:51,680 He said, "Tell the world that homosexuals are not cowards, 974 00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:55,280 "that they are no less courageous than anyone else." 975 00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:00,280 And to me, Willem's life exemplified courage. 976 00:59:01,560 --> 00:59:07,800 Living openly as a gay man, coming out when he was 17, and refusing 977 00:59:07,840 --> 00:59:11,120 ever to hide who he was. 978 00:59:18,280 --> 00:59:23,040 Willem needed the world to understand that being gay was no 979 00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:28,360 impediment to acting like a true hero. 980 00:59:43,120 --> 00:59:48,440 The men were marched to gunpoint for almost a mile across the dunes, 981 00:59:48,480 --> 00:59:51,880 before they reached the place of execution. 982 00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:00,920 Wherever in the dunes 983 01:00:00,960 --> 01:00:05,480 the shot sounded that ended Willem Arondeus' life, 984 01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:10,680 the field where it happened is a field of honour. 985 01:01:00,920 --> 01:01:07,160 Willem Sandberg spent the remainder of the war in hiding, using his time 986 01:01:07,200 --> 01:01:13,800 working on what he called his "Experimenta Typographica". 987 01:01:15,560 --> 01:01:18,560 Essentially, it was a new typeface. 988 01:01:21,000 --> 01:01:25,640 But if you look closely, you can see initials, 989 01:01:25,680 --> 01:01:27,040 and they are 990 01:01:27,080 --> 01:01:29,400 Koen Limperg. 991 01:01:29,440 --> 01:01:31,120 Johan Brava. 992 01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:34,480 Gerrit van der Veen. 993 01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:35,920 Franz du Vere. 994 01:01:37,000 --> 01:01:39,120 And Ticky Arondeus. 995 01:01:40,320 --> 01:01:44,920 It's a coded memorial to his friends, to the ones 996 01:01:44,960 --> 01:01:46,480 that he lost. 997 01:01:47,720 --> 01:01:49,280 To the fallen. 998 01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:54,640 Amongst my research pictures, 999 01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:56,320 I've got somewhere, I think, 1000 01:01:56,360 --> 01:01:59,720 yes, here we are, look, here's Willem's gravestone. 1001 01:01:59,760 --> 01:02:01,840 Gravestone. Yeah. 1002 01:02:01,880 --> 01:02:05,520 But he, he doesn't seem to be as remembered as 1003 01:02:05,560 --> 01:02:07,960 Gerrit van der Veen. 1004 01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:12,240 And admittedly, van der Veen is a more famous artist, as an artist, 1005 01:02:12,280 --> 01:02:16,160 but they both died young, before they'd finished their life's work. 1006 01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:17,960 Both executed. Both executed. 1007 01:02:18,000 --> 01:02:20,240 And van der Veen is everywhere. 1008 01:02:20,280 --> 01:02:24,560 Oh, yes, I live in Amsterdam, very close to the Gerrit Van Der Veen Street. 1009 01:02:24,600 --> 01:02:27,920 There is a Gerrit van der Veen school, and not only in Amsterdam, 1010 01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:31,160 everywhere in the country, but Willem Arondeus, I think, 1011 01:02:31,200 --> 01:02:33,640 has only one alley in Amsterdam, 1012 01:02:33,680 --> 01:02:36,800 and there are no schools, no street names. 1013 01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:39,640 But it can't be because he was gay, surely? 1014 01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:43,320 Well...you cannot really prove that. 1015 01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:45,680 There is no minutes of meetings 1016 01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:48,320 where people say, "Well, because he's gay, we will not 1017 01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:50,000 "mention him," or whatever. 1018 01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:54,320 But it was right after the Second World War when they started 1019 01:02:54,360 --> 01:02:57,920 to commemorate the Resistance heroes, 1020 01:02:57,960 --> 01:03:00,560 that being gay was not a plus. 1021 01:03:00,600 --> 01:03:06,400 You would think having had a hated ideology and a hated conqueror 1022 01:03:06,440 --> 01:03:09,480 like the Nazis in Netherlands, everything they stood for, 1023 01:03:09,520 --> 01:03:11,640 you would oppose. 1024 01:03:11,680 --> 01:03:15,600 This is a very painful part of Dutch history because the Jews who came 1025 01:03:15,640 --> 01:03:19,240 back from the camps to Amsterdam to the Netherlands, 1026 01:03:19,280 --> 01:03:21,520 they were not welcomed warmly. 1027 01:03:21,560 --> 01:03:24,040 They wanted to go to their own houses. 1028 01:03:24,080 --> 01:03:27,400 And then the city government said, "Well, you have to pay tax 1029 01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:31,160 "for the years that you were in the camps." What?! 1030 01:03:31,200 --> 01:03:33,400 Yes, unfortunately, that's true. 1031 01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:35,800 Even knowing what those people have been through in the camps. 1032 01:03:35,840 --> 01:03:37,120 Exactly. 1033 01:03:37,160 --> 01:03:39,320 They charged them money for their absence! 1034 01:03:39,360 --> 01:03:40,680 Yeah. Wow. 1035 01:03:40,720 --> 01:03:44,720 And it's only quite recently that the city of Amsterdam 1036 01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:49,520 really said, "Well, we have to do something about this." 1037 01:03:49,560 --> 01:03:52,560 Was there a movement amongst the early gay liberation, 1038 01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:54,160 as it was called? 1039 01:03:54,200 --> 01:03:58,440 Of course, within the gay community, people knew about Willem Arondeus, 1040 01:03:58,480 --> 01:04:03,120 about Sjoerd Bakker, about Frieda Belinfante, 1041 01:04:03,160 --> 01:04:07,440 but it was not common knowledge to the big public. 1042 01:04:07,480 --> 01:04:10,400 And for instance, each year in Amsterdam there's 1043 01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:12,880 this national commemoration, 1044 01:04:12,920 --> 01:04:17,440 and I remember that in 1970 there was a group of young gay men 1045 01:04:17,480 --> 01:04:22,040 who wanted to show the public that also gay men and lesbian women 1046 01:04:22,080 --> 01:04:27,320 were, were part of the Resistance movement, and they wanted to put 1047 01:04:27,360 --> 01:04:30,000 a wreath next to the monument. 1048 01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:32,360 And they were arrested and the wreath was taken 1049 01:04:32,400 --> 01:04:34,560 away and destroyed. 1050 01:04:45,640 --> 01:04:49,520 The general public doesn't know the story and doesn't know 1051 01:04:49,560 --> 01:04:54,200 about how important these figures were in the Resistance movement. 1052 01:04:54,240 --> 01:04:57,320 And for me, it's interesting that the Jewish Memorial 1053 01:04:57,360 --> 01:05:02,280 for ALL the dead of the Holocaust is called the Yad Vashem. Ah, yes. 1054 01:05:02,320 --> 01:05:05,840 Which means the memorial and the name. 1055 01:05:05,880 --> 01:05:09,000 You give a name to everyone who suffered, if you can. 1056 01:05:09,040 --> 01:05:12,240 And Yad Vashem has spent the last decades trying to trace the name 1057 01:05:12,280 --> 01:05:14,960 of every single victim, because it's important, 1058 01:05:15,000 --> 01:05:18,000 and this is what that first gravestone did, 1059 01:05:18,040 --> 01:05:21,640 but you have done with your work, and many of the people 1060 01:05:21,680 --> 01:05:25,600 I've been seeing have done, is give a name. In history, 1061 01:05:25,640 --> 01:05:28,840 you see that gay people are forgotten. 1062 01:05:28,880 --> 01:05:30,360 Yeah. 1063 01:05:30,400 --> 01:05:33,120 And the first thing to do is remember their name. 1064 01:05:33,160 --> 01:05:35,800 Exactly. 1065 01:05:35,840 --> 01:05:39,400 Willem Johan Cornelius Arondeus. 1066 01:05:49,160 --> 01:05:51,280 CHURCH BELL TOLLS 1067 01:06:03,720 --> 01:06:09,320 The Pink Triangle was once a symbol of Nazi oppression. 1068 01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:13,760 Homosexuals were forced to wear it, just as Jews were forced to wear 1069 01:06:13,800 --> 01:06:15,600 the Yellow Star of David. 1070 01:06:17,000 --> 01:06:20,920 The triangle was reclaimed in the 1980s by the gay rights 1071 01:06:20,960 --> 01:06:24,600 movement and is now a symbol of pride. 1072 01:06:25,840 --> 01:06:30,520 This is the first monument ever to honour every victim 1073 01:06:30,560 --> 01:06:32,680 of gay persecution. 1074 01:06:33,760 --> 01:06:37,000 This is the Homomonument. 1075 01:06:37,040 --> 01:06:40,640 Past, present and future, in one. 1076 01:06:41,800 --> 01:06:43,320 The past. 1077 01:06:43,360 --> 01:06:45,400 A warning from history. 1078 01:06:45,440 --> 01:06:47,040 The present. 1079 01:06:47,080 --> 01:06:48,760 Where we are now. 1080 01:06:48,800 --> 01:06:50,360 The future. 1081 01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:52,880 Where, for the sake of humanity, 1082 01:06:52,920 --> 01:06:56,520 I hope history never repeats itself. 1083 01:06:57,920 --> 01:07:03,640 This is how I believe Willem and Frieda should be remembered. 1084 01:07:59,720 --> 01:08:02,840 Subtitles by Red Bee Media