Joop Westerweel

Joop Westerweel (born January 25, 1899 Zutphen , † August 11, 1944 Vught concentration camp ) was a Dutch teacher, pacifist and resistance fighter against National Socialism . The members of the Westerweel group organized identity papers, hiding places and escape routes, especially for Jewish children and young people who had fled Nazi Germany . What was unusual was that the group consisted of Jews and non-Jews who worked together to save Jewish lives.

Life

Westerweels father was a printer and head of a small Christian sect. His son was therefore shaped by faith from an early age, which made him a staunch pacifist . After his training he first worked as a teacher in the Dutch East Indies , where he preached the renunciation of violence. As a result, he came into conflict with the colonial authorities, was sentenced to prison and later expelled from the country. After returning to the Netherlands, he became a teacher in Bilthoven and soon afterwards began to take care of the reception and education of refugee Jewish children from Poland and Germany. In 1942 he founded the Westerweel group and became one of the leading figures in the Dutch resistance . The group, in which Jews and non-Jews worked together, organized hiding places for people to go into hiding, as well as identity documents and escape routes. In total, the Westerweel group supported around 300 to 400 Jewish children and young people and saved the majority of them. Westerweel himself was arrested on March 10, 1944 while trying to smuggle two boys across the Dutch border into Belgium . He was taken to the Vught concentration camp and tortured, but did not reveal any information about his fellow campaigners. He was executed on August 11, 1944.

Commemoration

Joop Westerweel Monument in Israel

Joop and his wife Willy (Wilhelmina) are named Righteous Among the Nations in Yad Vashem in 1964 .

In the Westerweel Memorial Forest near Haifa there is a memorial for Joop Westerweel, Max Windmüller and their colleagues from the Jewish resistance movement.

The cities of Heemskerk , Montfoort , Rotterdam and Vlaardingen have streets named after him.

In Amsterdam there is the Joop Westerweelschool .

literature

Shaul Sagiv, “In unequal struggle” Christian-Jewish rescue operation of the Westerweel group: from Cologne to Holland through Westerbork via France and Spain to Israel 1924-1947 , 2001 ISBN 3-896-49626-3

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Westerweel, Joop
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Dutch resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH	January 25, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH	Zutphen
DATE OF DEATH	August 11, 1944
Place of death	Vught concentration camp