DUTCH RESISTANCE GROWS IN STRENGTH

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24020, 7 August 1943, Page 4

DUTCH RESISTANCE GROWS IN STRENGTH

NAZI RULE IN HOLLAND

It is three years since Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart was inaugurated as German Commissioner of the Occupied Netherlands. In one of his most revealing speeches, the Reich’s Commissioner exclaimed: — “I have been sent here to carry out a historic mission: that of converting the Dutch-Germanic people to National Socialism. This mission has been entrusted to me by Adolf Hitler, the Fuehrer of the Great-Germanic Reich. Being inspired by a truly religious fanaticism, I will not leave this country until my mission has been fulfilled.’’ The events which ended Dr. SeyssInquart’s third year of office have given clear proof of the final failure of his mission. On February 2, 1943, the Germans permitted the Dutch quisling leader Mussert to set up a curious form of shadow-cabinet, the members of which were supposed to give advice to those Germans who supervised and directed the activities of the Dutch departments of State. It looked as if. after some time, the Germans might invest this shadow-cabinet with a more formal kind of power. The Dutch Government in London, realising this danger and acting according to the expressed wishes of the underground press in Holland, on February 4 took a momentous step. It instructed the entire Dutch Civil Service to ignore all orders and advice of Mussert’s shadow-cabinet and to sabotage those German decrees which tended to increase the German war potential. The German reaction was typical. As if to demonstrate the extent of their brute power they swooped down on the Dutch secondary and technical schools. Streets were cordoned off, trains, trams, and buses held up. Thousands of young people were arrested and sent to German factories. The underground movement had been caught unprepared. But the members of it had learned their lesson. The entire people were called upon to go on strike immediately if the Germans repeated their man-hunt. A warning was added not to demonstrate in the streets as this would only lead to unnecessary bloodshed. Martial Law The next crisis arrived on April 29, when the German military commander in the Netherlands, General Christiansen, ordered all members of the disbanded Dutch armed forces to report for internment in prisoners of war camps in Germany. Immediately tools were downed in scores of factories. Twenty-four hours later a limited form of martial law had been declared throughout the country. A curfew was imposed from 8 in the evening till 6 in the morning. Strikes and lock-outs demonstrations, and incitements were forbidden under penalty of death. The Nazi police were ordered to fire without warning on public assemblies of more than five persons. These measures failed to nip the resistance in the bud. Indeed, on Saturday, May 1, and Sunday, May 2, the demonstrations increased in violence. Economic life came to a standstill. Farms of Dutch Nazis were set ablaze. In some places the Nazi police bayoneted and fired on demonstrating crowds, and fought pitched battles with groups of patriots who had decided that the hour had struck for a general rising. It may have been significant that on Sunday, Monday, and -Tuesday targets in Holland were attacked in daylight by Bostons, Venturas, and Mosquitoes of Bomber Command. On each of those days large numbers of Dutchmen were sentenced to death by German police courts and shot. Their ages varied from under 20 to over 70. They represented all classes of the Dutch community. Many others were imprisoned, and, when, finally, the strikes and demonstrations had gradually been called off and a prison-like order had returned, it was estimated that considerably more than 1000 patriots had lost their lives in the largest and most violent rising which Dr. Seyss-Inquart had ever to quell in blood. During the first year of office of this Nazi missionary, the number of Dutchmen who, officially or unofficially, were shot or martyred to death in Dutch or German concentration camps could still be counted in tens. It amounted to hundreds during his second; it rose to thousands during his third year. This increase indicated a steady rise of resistance in Holland. In the beginning the Dutch had great difficulties in adjusting themselves to the requirements of the underground struggle. With a short interruption during the Napoleonic times they had been masters in their own house for

(By a Dutch Correspondent in "The Times.”) (Published by Arrangement.)

uiuie mem iuui centuries. They wpi*'' apt to underrate the efficiency 0 f Gestapo. During the first months T the occupation there was tendency compensate lor the psychological Jv. back of the defeat by a dangerous!,* demonstrative behaviour. One of tv underground organisations issuM orange-coloured membership' which the proud members shd'wedrl each other in crowded IratrjcarsT L leader of another underground orciJt. isation could only after a longeMJ be induced to destroy the card-Uwl of members which he had comniM with that love-of-order which charar" terised the Dutch civil servant SevT enty-two members of a third orgahr isation were arrested and shot in Mavl 1942, owing to careless talk. 7s. Secret Organisations S The lessons of experience cwiffi however, not be indefinitely ignore? The underground movement adapted itself. The number and the circnia tion of underground papers increased! and in his latest speech, on May if 1943, Dr. Seyss-Inquart took great piM to ridicule three secret organisaUbhi the "Ordedienst,” the “Committer# Liberation," and a Communist oread isation. He was thus forced to admit' their existence and the fact thaLh» : knew little more about them than- 1 the names. The underground movement in Hoi. land is, rightly, one of a minority.# principal task is at the moment W stimulate all classes of the Dutehpeople to still greater solidarity and more self-sacrifice. Human aatur* being what it is, the number of files* who are willing to stick to their prin ciples, even if this means facing thi firing squad or undergoing the Un? speakable horrors of the concentration ' camp, is comparatively small. Apart from the active minority of those whf accept all risks, there is, at the other end of the scale, another small mins 1 ority which, though not pro-Nazli' not averse to making capital out 3 the sufferings of their compatriots Th* large majority of the people W never been won over by -the Nazi paganda barrage—the total men® ship claimed by the Dutch Nazis firm selves does not exceed li per cerj® the population—but to a certain exti they have undoubtedly been inHjp dated by the German terror. TheHw isolated from each other, Peopllai Amsterdam do not know whatMai pening in other towns 10 miWvag tant. They feel lost. While, speaking, the young people' ing tremendous courage and zeapfflg older ones feel themselves by the responsibilities for theFfea*.' lies. Democratic, free Holland ItVes#' : in the privacy of home, and—to the spiritual courage of teachersM clergy—in the comparative privacy#.’ school and church. The Church4n p£ ticular hgs never wavered in Itaiaiffi.tude. Public life, however, js dttnrot ated by the Nazis. .The streets resodnt to the jackboots of Nazi hooligaa^fe Living on Their Nerves But, i nspite of the infiuence intimidation, there is a practfcSa nation-wide willingness to rise as the circumstances are' cons®! favourable. It may be wise tOMami beforehand the nervous tens& wjM an occupied people like the Diiih M been storing up during steadily increasing oppression,' On 1 !* day of liberation they will be ously underfed. Thousandsjfnot tel of thousands, will emeyge-from .t>|ffi' hiding-places, skeleton-Uke. i ing of general insecurity, the the Gestapo will havs left its matfl millions. In fact, the entire will have lived “on their nerves’*®!} years. There Will be widespl®; anxiety about the fate rntMahriM hostages suffering camps, and of the hundreds of‘thcwe sands of workers, young.*!# oM; WM. have been dragged off to’’German W, factories. While some may be dazed If the recovery of freedom and the exp® sion of the tyrant, others will.be selzH, by a frenzy of energy. Adjusttfien to normal psychological conditions MB take many months. t 'M When, in 1574, after a siege wfi®' had reduced the population third, the ancient city relieved,.a fleet of flat-bottbmMpa# laden with herring and proached. The quays were’V cram with emaciated victors, and them, left to their own pulses, died from over-indulgehcetm should be a material and pSychtjJogi* warning both to the Dutchthemsdii and to their allies. "