Joop Westerweel

Joop Westerweel (* January 25, 1899 Zutphen; † August 11, 1944 Vught concentration camp ) was a Dutch pacifist and teachers. The members of the group organized Westerweel identity papers, hiding places and escape routes especially for escaped from Nazi Germany Jewish children and adolescents. The group was unusual in that it consisted of Jews and non-Jews who worked to save Jewish lives.

Life

Westerweels father was a printer and leader of a small Christian sect. So he was already confronted and influenced at a young age with the belief which made ​​him a convinced pacifist. After his education, he worked as a teacher in the Dutch East Indies, where he preached non-violence. In he came into conflict with the authorities, was sentenced to prison and deported later. After his return to the Netherlands he became a teacher in Bilthoven and soon began to take care of the recruitment and training of Jewish children who had fled from Poland and Germany. In 1942 he founded the group Westerweel and was one of the leaders of the Dutch resistance. The group was unusual in that it consisted of Jews and non-Jews who worked to save Jewish life in which she organized hiding in the underground as well as identity papers and escape routes. Overall, the Group Westerweel supported approximately 300 to 400 Jewish children and young people and rescued a large number of them. Westerweel himself was arrested while trying to smuggle two boys on the Dutch border in Belgium, on 10 March 1944. He was taken to the concentration camp Vught and tortured, but revealed no information on his comrades. On August 11, 1944, he was executed.

Commemoration

  • Joop and his wife Willy ( Wilhelmina ) are appointed at Yad Vashem in 1964 Righteous Among the Nations
  • In Westerweel Memorial Forest, near Haifa is a memorial to Joop Westerweel, Max Wind Mueller and her colleagues from the Jewish resistance movement.
  • Cities Heemskerk, Montfoort, Rotterdam and Vlaardingen have named streets after him
  • In Amsterdam there is the Joop Westerweelschool
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