Sally Dormits

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Samuel Zacharias "Sally" Dormits (born October 2, 1909 in Rotterdam , † October 17, 1942 ibid) was a Dutch communist . During the Second World War he led the resistance group Nederlandse Volksmilitie , his arrest by the police led to the arrest of hundreds of other resistance fighters.

biography

Early years

Dormits was born in Rotterdam in 1909 as the son of the Jewish merchant Mozes Dormits and his wife Kaatje Kapper, but spent much of his early childhood with the family in Brazil . In 1915 he finally returned to the Netherlands with his parents and from then on attended school in Scheveningen . The parents were divorced shortly afterwards. From 1927 onwards, Dormits spent two more years in South America, where it is rumored that he joined a group of insurgents. After returning to Europe, he was drafted into military service and in 1931 married the half-Jewish Annette Mary Hartog, with whom he had a son. In 1936 Dormits joined the communist party CPN and became involved in the International Red Aid .

Spanish Civil War

On October 31, 1937 Dormits went to Spain as a volunteer to fight in the raging Spanish Civil War with the International Brigades on the side of the Republicans . There he was first the XI. Brigade assigned, but later served with the XIII. Brigade belonging to the Dimitrov Battalion . Here he was assigned to an anti-aircraft battery. Little is known about his achievements in the civil war, but superiors described him as a "disciplined military". On February 22, 1939, Dormits returned to the Netherlands from Spain.

Second World War

After returning to his home country, Dormits initially traded in radio parts. After the German occupation of the Netherlands began in May 1940, as a Jew and communist, he faced persecution. In the autumn of 1941 he began to work underground and founded his own resistance group, the Dutch People's Militia ( Dutch Nederlandse Volksmilitie ), as the communist resistance efforts around the illegal CPN seemed too passive to him. To this end, he began collecting information about possible comrades-in-arms who had fought with him in the civil war. To do this, he wrote down numerous personal data, including address information, in an extensive register.

In addition to working on illegal underground newspapers from the communist environment, such as De Sirene and De Waarheid , Dormits and the People's Militia carried out various attacks on institutions of the occupying power, which were crowned with varying success. A Dutch railway worker was killed during an attempted attack on a German supply train, while the train itself could not be damaged. As a punishment for the action, the Germans executed five Dutch hostages. On October 13, 1942, resistance fighters set fire to a Wehrmacht warehouse. When fleeing from the scene of the crime, one of those involved, Evert Ruivenkamp, ​​had to leave behind a women's bike that he had bought from Dormits some time before. The police used the serial number of the bicycle to establish a connection between the arson attack and Dormits, which was subsequently searched for.

On October 17, Dormits was arrested while trying to steal a woman's handbag. He presumably did this to get identification papers for his Jewish girlfriend, with whom he had lived in hiding in Rotterdam since the divorce from his wife a few months earlier. He carried a pistol in a briefcase, which the police apparently did not take away from him. After he was subsequently taken to a police station, Dormits took his own life by shooting in the head. On the body, the investigators found, among other things, a receipt from a shop in Rotterdam and a pick-up card from a dry cleaner near his hiding place.

Consequences of the arrest

Monument to the members of the Nederlandse Volksmilitie in Rotterdam

The documents found at Dormits led the investigators to the headquarters of the People's Militia in Rotterdam's Bijlwerffstraat 37. There, in addition to chemicals and incendiary bombs, expenses from De Waarheid were seized. Dormit's encrypted register with the names and addresses of members of the People's Militia was also found during the raid. After the encryption was cracked shortly afterwards, this data fell into the hands of the police. This discovery led to a wave of arrests in Rotterdam and The Hague , a total of 221 resistance members fell into the hands of the Germans, the youngest of whom was only twelve years old. Only a few of the prisoners were subsequently released, a significant number were tortured and taken to a concentration camp. The death penalty was still imposed in 21 cases in the Netherlands .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gezin overzicht: Dormits, Mozes. In: maxvandam.info. Retrieved December 10, 2018 (Dutch).
  2. ↑ a b c d Ron van Hasselt: DORMITS, Sally. In: spanjestrijders.nl. March 9, 2016, accessed December 10, 2018 (Dutch).
  3. ^ Ben Braber: This Cannot Happen Here: Integration and Jewish Resistance in the Netherlands 1940-1945 . Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2013, ISBN 978-90-8964-583-8 , pp. 143 .
  4. ^ Sabotage spoorweg Rotterdam, 1942. In: tweedewereldoorlog.nl. Retrieved December 11, 2018 (Dutch).
  5. ↑ Nederlandse Volksmilitie | arrestatie tasjesdief. In: licht.ovh. Retrieved December 11, 2018 (Dutch).
  6. ↑ Nederlandse Volksmilitie | inval hoofdkwartier. In: licht.ovh. Retrieved December 11, 2018 (Dutch).
  7. ↑ Nederlandse Volksmilitie | fatal administration. In: licht.ovh. Retrieved December 11, 2018 (Dutch).
  8. ↑ Massale arrestaties. In: licht.ovh. Retrieved December 11, 2018 (Dutch).
personal data
SURNAME Dormits, Sally
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dormits, Samuel Zacharias (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch communist and leader of the resistance group Nederlandse Volksmilitie
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Rotterdam
DATE OF DEATH October 17, 1942
Place of death Rotterdam