The Second World War in 100 Objects Online

UNIQUE COLLABORATION

The Second World War in 100 Objects was a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition made possible through the cooperation of twenty-five Dutch war and Resistance museums, the Kunsthal Rotterdam and the vfonds. The museums involved in this unique collaboration provided exceptional objects from their collections, which are being presented together for the first time at one location. These 100 objects tell the story of the Second Word War in an original way. Every object has a moving, disturbing or remarkable history. The exhibition could be seen at the Kunsthal Rotterdam from 5 February thru 5 May 2014.

Once the exhibition has closed, information about these 100 select objects will continue to be available via www.tweedewereldoorlog.nl

1. Gasproof Baby Buggy

From the Dutch Royal Collection, The Hague / On permanent loan to Het Loo Palace

Pram of metal and glass, specially made for Princess Beatrix to protect her from a possible poison gas attack.

h 110 cm x w 110 cm
1940

As the threat of war increased in Europe in August 1939, the Dutch army was placed at a heightened state of alertness. In early 1940, as a precautionary measure, the firm of Kiekens built two gasproof baby buggies as protection against the possibility of a poisonous attack. This one for the then two-year-old Dutch Princess Beatrix and another for her younger sister Princess Irene.

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2. THE CAPITULATION FLAG

From the collection of Museum Rotterdam / The War and Resistance Museum Rotterdam

White cloth, nailed to a piece of broomstick. With blood stains.

h 148 cm x w 68 cm
1940

The 14th of May 1940: four days earlier, German troops had invaded the Netherlands. Fierce battles were raging in many places. Also in Rotterdam. The Germans threatened to bomb the city if the Dutch did not surrender. A white flag was needed. Sergeant Major Gerrit Ommering made this one from a sheet and a broomstick. Waving his flag, he walked back and forth a number of times between Dutch Military Headquarters and that of the Germans during the negotiations to force a capitulation. Along the way he tended to a wounded marine and blood splattered on this flag.

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3. MELTED SEWING MACHINE

From the collection of the Museum Rotterdam / The War and Resistance Museum Rotterdam

Electric Singer sewing machine, affected by fire during bombardementop Rotterdam.

H 26 cm x W 48 cm
1940

Early in the afternoon on 14 May 1940 the air-raid siren suddenly sounded. The people of Rotterdam rushed to take cover as German Heinkel bombers approached the city. Then all hell broke loose.

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4. BURIED TRENCH PICKAXE

From the collection of the Province of Utrecht / Foundation Greb

H 16 cm x W 26 cm
1939-1940

On the morning of 11 May 1940, 23,000 German soldiers launched an attack on the Grebbeberg, a strategic hill near the Dutch town of Rhenen. The German army was far superior to the inexperienced and poorly armed 2,500 Dutch soldiers of the 8th Regiment Infantry (8 R.I.).

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5. SHELLSHOCKED WATCH

From the collection of the Casemate Museum in Kornwerderzand, Province of Friesland

h 30 mm x w 28 mm
1940

On 14 May 1940, German planes sighted the Dutch gunboat Johan Maurits van Nassau just off the coast of the town of Callantsoog. Earlier the ship had successfully helped to defend the Afsluitdijk, the large enclosure dam in the north of the Netherlands.

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6. SEYSS-INQUART’S SS UNIFORM

From the collection of the Dutch National Military Museum, Soesterberg

h 80 cm x w 45 cm
1940-1945

Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who had been a loyal member of the Nazi-SS since 1938, was installed as Reichskommissar (Nazi Governor of the Netherlands) on 29 May 1940 in the Ridderzaal of the Dutch Parliament building in The Hague. As Hitler's representative in the occupied Netherlands, he largely determined German policymaking.

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7. REICHSKREDIT-KASSENSCHEINE

From the collection of The Dutch Central Bank(DNB) / The Money Museum

Varied dimensions, 1940

With the occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, a new temporary currency was placed into circulation: the Reichskreditkassenschein. German soldiers could purchase what they needed from Dutch shops using this money.

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8. CHOPPED OFF PIGEON’S FEET

From the collection of Museum Rotterdam/ The War and Resistance Museum Rotterdam

h 7 cm x w 3 cm
1942

As early as May 1940, the Germans issued an ordinance stating that all carrier and fancy pigeons had to be killed. Free-flying pigeons might be used to get messages to the Allied Forces.

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9. RADIO FREE ORANGE TURNTABLE

From the collection of the Overloon War Museum

h 40 cm x w 82 cm
1940-1945

The 28th of July 1940: ‘This is Radio Oranje, the voice of the Netherlands at war’.

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10. DEADLY TYPEWRITER

From the collection of the War and Resistance Center Groningen (OVCG)

h 25 cm x w 39 cm
1940-1945

The German occupier not only imposed its will using soldiers, but also through the Civil Service. A typewriter could be just as deadly as a bullet. Until the end of 1944 this typewriter was used in the Scholtenhuis on the Grote Markt, the main square in Groningen. In this monumental building countless arrest warrants were set in motion, confessions were noted in detail after brutal interrogations and documents were typed to facilitate the persecution of the Jews.

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11. ANTON MUSSERT’S CHAIR

From the collection of the Overloon War Museum

h 110 cm x w 70 cm, 1940-1945

This desk chair, with its Dutch Nazi Party insignia – including the States Lion – once stood in Anton Mussert’s office at NSB Headquarters located at #35 Maliebaan in the Dutch city of Utrecht. Mussert was the co-founder and leader of the National Socialist Movement (NSB) in the Netherlands.

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12. NETHERLANDS UNION MANIFESTO

From the collection of the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
(NIOD), Amsterdam

h 122 cm x 86 cm, 1940

Three prominent Dutch citizens: Hans Linthorst Homan, Jan de Quay and Louis Einthoven hoped to improve on a bad situation. Inclined to cooperate with the German occupier in order to ensure the preservation of Dutch values, in July 1940 they founded De Nederlandsche Unie (The Netherlands Union).

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13. RESISTANCE TEA SPOONS

From the collection of the Zeeland Liberation Museum

Varied dimensions, 1940-1945

In 1941, the Niehot family of The Hague welcomed its fourteenth child to the world. The midwife, Nelia Epker, suggested giving Dutch Royal names to the newborn baby. A birth announcement was placed in the newspaper for Irene Beatrix Wilhelmina Juliana Niehot. It was a symbolic gesture of resistance to maintain morale.

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14. WOMEN'S AUTO-MOBILE CORPS (VAC) UNIFORM

From the collection of the Bronbeek Museum, Arnhem

h 150 cm x w 55 cm
1940-1942

Prior to the Second World War, Japan conquered both Korea and Taiwan (Formosa) and a part of China. The initial aim of expanding Japanese territory changed into efforts to establish a great Asian Empire.

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15. ANTON DE KOM’S FOUNTAIN PEN

From the private collection of the De Kom family

h 12 cm x w 1 cm
1940-1944

Even before the Second World War, the writer and activist Anton de Kom fought with all his heart for equality between blacks and whites in the Dutch colony of Suriname. His book Wij slaven van Suriname (We Slaves of Suriname) was a symbol of resistance against colonialism.

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16. MIMEOGRAPH WITH BICYCLE

From the collection of the Resistance Museum, Amsterdam

h 120 cm x w 180 cm (Copying machine)
h 120 cm x w 50 cm (Bicycle)
1940-1945

In 1940, the German occupier abolished freedom of the press. Only information that it sanctioned was allowed in the papers, on the radio and in newsreels. An illegal press arose in reaction to this. The first newspapers appeared sporadically, but by the end of the war the number of illegal publications had increased to 1300.

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17. NETHERLANDS' WINTER-AID MONEY BOX

From the collection of Museum Rotterdam/The War and Resistance Museum Rotterdam

h 17 cm x ø 10 cm
1940-1944

In 1940, the Reichskommissar (Nazi Governor) of the occupied Netherlands, Seyss-Inquart, set up Winterhulp Nederland (Netherlands' Winter-Aid) modelled on the German example. Through collections and raffles the organization raised money to help provide needy Dutch families with food and clothing. All other charitable organizations were banned.

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18. GATSONIDES’ COAL GAS-GENERATOR

From the collection of the Overloon War Museum

h 125 cm x w 265 cm
1940-1945

Because the German occupier commandeered fuel for its own needs, early in the war there was already a shortage of petrol. To ensure that cars could still keep riding, some were equipped with a gas generator or a large gas reservoir on top. This meant extensively rebuilding the vehicle. The Dutch race car driver and inventor Maus Gatsonides developed a new kind of gas generator: a gasifier.

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19. ‘KRAUT FILTER'

From the collection of the Frisian Resistance Museum

h 75 cm x w 63 cm
1941-1945

Just like the newspapers, the radio also fell under strict German supervision during the occupation. In January 1941, Dutch stations were replaced by a single state-run broadcaster overseen by the NSB (Dutch Nazi Party).

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20. ELFSTEDENTOCHT CHALLENGE CUP

From the collection of the Royal Society of Eleven Frisian Cities/Frisian Maritime Museum

h 35 cm x ø 12 cm
1941-1942

In the early morning hours of 6 February 1941, 1900 people fastened on their skates. The race of all races was about to begin: the Elfstedentocht (Eleven Cities Speed Skating Tour). The weather was mild and the ice looked inviting. But there were also some concern. An imposed blackout meant a large part of the race would have to be skated in the dark, making it very difficult for many participants. The Frisian skater Auke Adema finished first.

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21. ORANJEHOTEL DOOR

From the collection of the Overloon War Museum, with the permission of the Dutch Foundation Oranjehotel

h 230 cm x w 95 cm
1940-1945

This wooden door once closed off the distinctive small archway in the long prison wall on Van Alkemadelaan in the Dutch seaside town of Scheveningen. During the war, this notorious prison quickly became known to the Dutch as the Oranjehotel (Lit. Orange Hotel), given that many Dutch Resistance fighters – including members of the Resistance group De Geuzen, Anton de Kom and Boy Ecury – were interned here.

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22. MERCHANT NAVY GUNNER’S VEST

From the collection of the Maritime Museum Rotterdam

h 79 cm x w 58 cm
1940-1945

Roeland Jan Kroesen was just one of thousands of men sailing with the Dutch Merchant Navy when the Second World War broke out. Life changed drastically: ships that weren't in occupied waters at the outbreak of the war and capable of helping the Allied effort were required to do so. This was the result of a vaarplicht (injunction to continue sailing) issued by Dutch royal decree on 6 June 1940.

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23. FORGED IDENTITY CARD

From the collection of Markt 12 - Euregional Hiding Museum, Aalten

h 11 cm x b 24 cm
1941-1945

On 8 October 1941, the Jewish cattle dealer Salli Schwarz narrowly escaped a roundup on Molenstraat in the town of Winterswijk. Sneaking through backyard after backyard, he embarked on a journey that would last the rest of the war. Salli, followed by his wife Betty and daughter Ria, went from one hiding place to another.

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24. 'FORBIDDEN FOR JEWS'

From the collection of the South Holland Resistance Museum, Gouda

h 19 cm x w 40 cm
1941

Less than two months after the German invasion, Jewish employees of the Dutch Air Raid Defence Service were dismissed. It was the first in a long line of anti-Jewish measures. Jews were gradually isolated from the rest of the population in the Netherlands.

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25. SNIP AND SNAP MARIONETTES

From the Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam / Netherlands Theatre Institute
h 85 cm x w 25 cm
1942-1943

In the months following the bombing of Rotterdam in May 1940, the Germans wanted daily life to continue as normal as possible. So entertainment was of great importance. And who better to help with this than the popular twosome of Snip and Snap. For years the comedy reviews of Willy Walden (Snip) and Piet Muyselaar (Snap) had drawn full houses.

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26. LAST SELF-PORTRAITS

From the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

h 31 cm x w 25 cm
1941-1942

After the February Strike of 1941, the sculptor and draftsman Cor van Teeseling joined a Resistance group that printed and distributed the illegal Communist newspaper De Waarheid (Lit. The Truth). Six months later, the Germans arrested him. On 10 November 1941, the death sentence was pronounced against him.

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27. DIRECTIONS TO CAMP AMERSFOORT

From the collection of the National Monument Camp Amersfoort

h 20 cm x w 99 cm
1941-1945

It was a simple black & white signboard alongside the road with a few abbreviated German words. Nothing more. But for the thousands of prisoners who saw this board on their way to Polizeiliches Durchgangslager (Police Transit Camp) Amersfoort, it was their first glimpse of an unknown future.

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28. ENGELANDVAARDER’S CANOE

From the private collection of the Peteri family

h 50 cm x w 460 cm
1941

During the war around 1700 Dutch men and women who tried to reach freedom in England, over land or by sea, were given the honorary name: Engelandvaarders (Lit. England-farers). They hoped to actively take part in the Allied struggle against the Germans. Two brothers, Henri and Willem Peteri, managed to escape from the occupied Netherlands in this canoe.

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29. GERMAN LANGUAGE RADIO COURSE

From the private collection of Arthur van Beveren

h 24 cm x w 16 cm
1941-1942

On Sunday 5 October 1941 listeners readied themselves with a textbook for their first German lesson, broadcast on a Dutch radio station from the city of Hilversum. Alfred Rügner began by telling his audience a little something about German pronunciation.

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30. STEEL ‘STEED’ WITH WOODEN TIRES

From the collection of the Dutch National Military Museum


h 120 cm (bicycle)
ø 75 cm (wheel)
1941-1945

In the period 1940-1945, very few people actually owned a car so bicycles were a major means of transport. Because imports of rubber were discontinued during the war, bicycle tires were quickly scarce. But this made people inventive: when certain products were unavailable during the war, people came up with substitutes.

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31. JAPANESE MACHINE GUN

From the collection of the Bronbeek Museum, Arnhem

h 41 cm x b 140 cm
1943

It was a quiet, breezy night with a full-moon as marine H. Kooi of the Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger, KNIL (Royal Netherlands East Indies Army) left the city of Surabaya to go into battle. Two months earlier, at the beginning of 1942, Japan had attacked the Dutch East Indies and it now threatened to occupy Java as well. Suddenly we find ourselves in the middle of a fight against the Japanese...

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32. ROLL OF ‘YELLOW STAR’ FABRIC

From the collection of the Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam

h 60 cm x w 137 cm
1942

As of 3 May 1942, all Jews age six and older were required to wear a so-called yellow star visible on the left side of their clothing. It was yet another measure to isolate and exclude Jews from Dutch society. The word Jood (Jew) appears in the middle of this six-pointed star, which has the same form as the Jewish Star of David.

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33. AIR FILTER FROM DEFENCE BUNKER

From the collection of the Fort De Bilt Memorial Centre and Monument

A number of machine gun bunkers were built near all the forts forming the Dutch Waterlinie, land that could be flooded as a means of defence. In the event of a gas attack these bunkers could be sealed off airtight.

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34. GERMAN BIRTHDAY GIFT

From the collection of the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD), Amsterdam

h 67 cm x w 50 cm
1942

On 11 May 1942, in his headquarters at #35 Maliebaan in Utrecht, the leader of the Dutch Nazi Party (NSB), Anton Mussert, was congratulated by his personnel on the occasion of his forty-eighth birthday. Then two members of his staff carried in a large present. They opened the package to reveal a huge book, almost 70 cm high and weighing at least 15 kilos.

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35. CIGARETTES FROM HOME-GROWN TOBACCO

From the collection of the Achterhoeks Museum
1940-1945, Hengelo

Varied dimensions, 1942-1945

There was a huge shortage of tobacco during the war years due to the compulsory delivery of a large part of the tobacco stock to Germany and the loss of supply lines from abroad.

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36. FROM SIMON VESTDIJK’S WORK

From the collection of the Vestdijk Society / Hans Visser

h 25 cm x w 21 cm
1942

On 4 May 1942, the Germans imprisoned 460 prominent Dutch people including politicians, mayors, professors, clergymen, lawyers, writers and musicians in the Beekvliet Preparatory Seminary in the Dutch town of Sint-Michielsgestel.

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37. FILE CABINETS WITH STAMPS

From the collection of the Resistance Museum Amsterdam

Per box:
h 12 cm x w 16 cm
1943-1945

Thanks to these rubber stamps – stored in envelopes arranged alphabetically in these cabinets – it was possible to create fake identity cards and other documents during the war. Exactly how many were forged is unknown, but by the beginning of 1944 the count was already 91,000.

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38. BURMA RAILWAY CROSSTIE

From the collection of Museon
(Museum of Science and Culture), The Hague

h 14 cm x w 192 cm
1942-1943

The Japanese occupier in the Dutch East Indies forced Western men and Dutch Indonesians of the colony to work as slave labourers. Thousands of men, who were first vigorous, strong and healthy, suffered terribly under the wretched conditions. All day long they toiled in the burning sun and almost unbearable heat to lay the infamous Burma Railway.

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39. ANNE FRANK’S MARBLES

From the collection of the Anne Frank House, Amsterdam

h 9 cm x w 19 cm
1942

Some Jewish children gave away their toys when they had to report for transport or went into hiding. Marbles were a child’s prized possession. The night before they were transported, a few children in the South of Amsterdam were known to have said: ‘Let’s just toss them!’ They threw their marbles out the window, hoping other children in the neighbourhood would gather them up.

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40. WESTERBORK-AUSCHWITZ TRAIN SIGNBOARD

From the collection of the Camp Westerbork Memorial Centre

h 40 cm x w 80 cm
1942-1944

This metal train sign ‘Westerbork-Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Westerbork’ indicated a return trip that nobody would ever make. On 15 and 16 July 1942, the first two cargo trains packed with more than 2,000 Jews left the Westerbork Transit Camp headed for the Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland. Most of the people aboard these transports were killed the same day they arrived. A total of 65 trains left for Auschwitz alone.

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41. ORDEDIENST COVERALLS

From the collection of the Camp Westerbork Memorial Centre

h 145 cm x w 60 cm
1942-1944

In October 1939 the first German-Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany arrived in Westerbork. They were involved in the internal organization of the refugee camp starting in 1940, as well as later on when it officially became a transit camp for Jews: Polizeiliches Judendurchgangslager Westerbork.

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42. JEUGDSTORM TRUMPET

From the collection of the Achterhoeks Museum 1940-1945, Hengelo

h 16 cm x w 51 cm
1939-1945

‘When standing at attention for a long time, once the musical director gives the sign, the horn may be placed under the right arm’ These and other strict instructions applied to playing the Nationale Jeugdstorm (NJS, National Youth Storm) trumpet.

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43. FAREWELL LETTER

From the collection of Museum Rotterdam / The War and Resistance Museum Rotterdam

h 17 cm x w 15 cm
1942

A planned sea crossing on 21 March 1942 of the Jewish Engelandvaarder (Lit. England-farer) Carl Martin Zellermayer and eight others failed because they were betrayed. In the ferry boss’ house in the Dutch harbour village of Simonshaven they awaited nightfall. Once it was dark, they could embark on their journey to England. But before that happened, the Germans surrounded the house and arrested the would-be Engelandvaarders.

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44. BEAR WITH FULL BELLY

From the collection of Museon
(Museum of Science and Culture), The Hague

h 37 cm x w 11 cm
1942-1945

Nine-year-old Margreet Kuiper arrived at Camp Tjideng in Batavia with nothing. The last suitcase with any of her belongings was lost along the way. But then she found this teddy bear in the garbage. The Japanese, who occupied the Dutch East Indies in 1942, interned the Dutch in special camps. A reign of terror prevailed in Camp Tijdeng. Hunger and disease were rampant and in the absence of medicine, the death toll rose. In this difficult period Margreet cherished this teddy bear.

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45. SEIZED BELL

From the collection of the National Clock & Peel Museum, Asten

h 41 cm x ø 39 cm
1942

In September 1942, the Germans enacted a measure that made many of the Dutch extremely angry: they seized bronze church bells to melt them down for canons and ammunition.

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46. LIFE VEST FROM JAPANESE ‘HELL SHIP’

From the collection of the Bronbeek Museum, Arnhem

h 45 cm x w 30 cm
1943

The Nitimei Maru, a Japanese troop ship with around 1,000 Dutch prisoners of war and 1562 Japanese soldiers aboard, departed from Singapore on 29 December 1942.

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‘47. DE NIEUWE MENSCH’

From the collection of Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

h 277 cm x w 172 cm
ca. 1937

In 1940 the leader of the Dutch Nazi Party (NSB), Anton Mussert, received this painting as a gift from the Dutch businessman Louis van Leeuwen Boomkamp before he departed for the Dutch East Indies. Mussert hung it in his office at NSB Headquarters in Utrecht.

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48. FLAG IN GOOD HANDS

From the collection of the Winterswijk Synagogue

h 182 cm x w 230 cm
1943

In 1943, the Jewish family Gans was on their way to the train station because Father Josef, Mother Martha and their four children Abraham, Louise, Emma and baby Harry had received a call-up notice. After earlier deferments they were ordered, like many other Jews, to report for internment in the Vught Concentration Camp.

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49. BETRAYER’S BOUNTY

From the collection of the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD), Amsterdam

h 27 cm x w 20 cm
1943

This receipt was given to members of the Dutch Henneicke Colonne in 1943 for the Jews they had arrested and delivered to the German authorities.

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50. BLESSED RADIO

From the collection of the Casemate Museum in Kornwerderzand, Province of Friesland.

h 19 cm x w 14 cm
1943-1945

In May 1943, the Germans tried with all their means to jam the reception of foreign radio stations, including Radio Oranje (Radio Free Orange) from England. But this had little effect and the majority of the Dutch population continued to listen to these forbidden broadcasters.

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51. SHOEMAKER’S FAREWELL

From the collection of the National Monument Camp Vught

h 15 cm x w 54 cm
1943

The everyday life of the Jewish Gold family, who lived in the village of Jutphaas near Utrecht, came to an abrupt end in April 1943: Father, Mother and their son Lothar were picked up from their home and eventually deported. They always had close contact with the neighbours across the street, the Steenaart family.

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52. APRIL-MAY STRIKE DEATH PENALTY

From the collection of the War and Resistance Center Groningen(OVCG)

h 30 cm x w 35 cm
1943

On 29 April 1943, Wehrmachtbefehlshaber (Wehrmacht Commander) General Friedrich Christiansen announced that Dutch soldiers who had fought against the invading Germans in May 1940 would again be taken as prisoners of war and sent to Germany to work in factories and on the land.

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53. VOLUNTEER’S SS-UNIFORM

From the collection of the Dutch National Military Museum, Soesterberg

h 60 cm x w 50 cm
1943

The Dutch volunteers who fought with the Germans were initially two apart groups: those who served with the Waffen-SS and those who registered for the Dutch Vrijwilligerslegion (Volunteer Legion).

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54. LOOTED CUTLERY

Made available to the Camp Westerbork Memorial Centre, for the exhibition In bewaring gegeven (Given in Safekeeping)

1943

For years Chris B’s family used this silver-plated cutlery to eat their meals. In 1943, B. was an ardent Nazi who actively took part in hunting down Jews hiding in Amsterdam and its vicinity. He was a member of the Henneicke Colonne, a group that in a period of six months arrested between 8000 and 9000 Jews and delivered them to the Hollandsche Schouwberg, the Amsterdam theatre venue from which the deportations took place. B. and his fellow Dutch ‘Jew hunters’ received a bounty payment of 7.50 guilders for each person they rounded up.

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55. HANNIE SCHAFT’S DISGUISE GLASSES

From the collection of the Dutch Resistance Museum, Amsterdam

1943-1945

In 1943, the red-headed Dutch student Hannie Schaft joined a Communist Resistance group in the Dutch city of Haarlem. This group liquidated betrayers. Hannie worked closely with the sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen.

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56. CHRIST AND THE ADULTERESS

From the collection of the Fundatie Museum, Zwolle / Borrowed via the Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE)

h 100 cm x w 90 cm
1942

In 1943, via an art broker, Hermann Goering purchased this ‘Vermeer’ for the astronomical amount of 1.65 million guilders. The seller was the painter and art dealer Han van Meegeren.

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57. A LAST MESSAGE FROM ETTY HILLESUM

From the collection of the Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam

h 9 cm x w 14 cm
1943

On 7 September 1943, a freight train with 987 Jews aboard departed from the Westerbork Transit Camp in the east of the Netherlands to the Auschwitz Concentration and Extermination Camp in occupied Poland. Sitting on her backpack in an overcrowded railway car, twenty-nine-year-old Etty Hillseum wrote this postcard to her friend Christine who lived in Deventer. ‘We have left the camp singing...’ she entrusted to paper. Then she threw the card from the train – her last sign of life.

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58. STILL LIFE WITH BREAD

From the collection of the Vught Historical Museum via the National Monument Camp Vught

h 65 cm x w 75 cm
1943

The painter Johan van Sweden, who was also a member of the Groningen artists’ collective De Ploeg (The Plough Team), ended up in the Vught Concentration Camp in the Netherlands because of his Resistance activities. He made commissioned portraits for some of the camp guards and the SS there and because of this received a number of special privileges. He was provided with his own studio, while the guards went about getting him painting supplies.

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59. AUNT TRUUS’ TOTE BAG

From the collection of the Dutch Resistance Museum, Amsterdam

h 23 cm x w 45 cm
1942-1945

In 1942 Truus Scholten joined the resistance in the Dutch province of Limburg, bordering on Germany. As a midwife, she was respected by both the Dutch and the Germans. Her line of work exempted her from the imposed evening curfew and she was allowed to keep her car.

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60. TOY PLANE IN HIDING

From the private collection of the Rooiman family

h 15 cm x w 40 cm
1943-1945

On 27 September 1942, the Jewish child Joop Levy went into hiding with his parents. They were taken in by the Ebbers family on their farm in the village of Lintelo in the Achterhoek, a region in the eastern part of the Netherlands. Joop had no friends to play with.

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61. SINTERKLAAS COSTUME

From the collection of the Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam

h 155 cm x w 50 cm
1940-1945

Flip Heil participated in Resistance activities related to the illegal Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool. He was married to a Jewish woman, Lien Barend. Because the Nazis tended not to bother couples in mixed-marriages, Lien was relatively safe.

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62. B2 SPY RADIO SET

From the collection of the Crypto Museum

h 16 cm x w 52 cm
1942-1945

Walking down the street with a suitcase isn’t particularly unusual and it wasn’t during the war either. It was, however, a different story if the case contained an illegal radio transmitter. Many Resistance fighters risked their lives to maintain contact with a free England using a B2-transmitter.

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63. GERMAN PROPAGANDA POSTER

From the collection of the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD), Amsterdam

h 110 cm x w 79 cm
1944

The Dutch cities of Nijmegen, Enschede, Deventer and Arnhem endured heavy attacks from Allied bombers on 22 February 1944. Due to bad weather conditions, the pilots could not attack the designated targets in Germany so instead they chose an opportune target: the railway yard in Nijmegen.

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65. RUPERT DOLL

From the collections of the Frisian Resistance Museum and the South Holland Resistance Museum, Gouda

h 82 cm x w 57 cm
1944-1945

The English called him ‘Rupert’ and the Americans ‘Oscar’. The Allies used these paratrooper dummies to cause confusion and chaos among the German troops.

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66. TAPESTRY FROM SINGAPORE

From the collection of the Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam

h 141 cm x w 100 cm
1944

Rabbi Chaim Nussbaum grew up in Scheveningen in the Netherlands and after getting married returned with his wife to the country of his birth, Lithuania. When the Nazis invaded Lithuania in 1941, Chaim managed to escape with his family.

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67. SS-FLAG

From the collection of the War and Resistance Center Groningen(OVCG)

1940-1945

During the occupation, this SS-flag was used at the Scholtenhuis on the Grote Markt in Groningen. The headquarters of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the notorious Nazi Security Service – a division of the SS – was located here.

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68. A RING FOR ROZA

From the collection of the Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam

h 2 cm x w 2 cm
1944

After their hiding place was betrayed, Roza and Siem Vos were deported via Westerbork to the Auschwitz Extermination Camp in Poland on 3 March 1944. They were immediately separated from each other.

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69. PRINCE BERNHARD’S BS-UNIFORM

From the collection of the Dutch National Military Museum, Soesterberg

h 57 cm x w 47 cm
1944-1945

During the years the Dutch Royal family spent exiled in England, Prince Bernhard was of tremendous support to Queen Wilhelmina. In September 1944 she appointed him commander-in-chief of the BS: Nederlandse Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (Dutch Interior Forces).

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70. SILK ROUTE

From the collection of the ‘Hartenstein’ Airborne Museum, Oosterbeek

h 70 cm x w 70 cm
1944

When Lieutenant Colonel John Frost, commander of the British 2nd Parachute Battalion, landed in the Netherlands on 17 September 1944, this silk map of the Netherlands, Belgium and France was safely tucked in his pocket.

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71. DIVINE WEDDING DRESS

From the collection of the ‘Hartenstein’ Airborne Museum, Oosterbeek

h 130 cm x w 60 cm
1944

The Allies wanted to put an end to the war as quickly as possible, so in the autumn of 1944 they launched a dangerous plan: Operation Market Garden. On the 17th of September 1944, 35.000 British and American paratroopers jumped from planes above the Dutch provinces of North Brabant and Gelderland or landed by glider.

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72. FOLDABLE MOTORCYCLE

From the collection of the ‘Hartenstein’ Airborne Museum, Oosterbeek

h 90 cm x w 140 cm
1944

This British folding motorcycle literally fell from the sky during the Battle of Arnhem. On 17 September 1944, nearly 5,200 men of the British First Airborne Division landed by parachute or glider on the woodland heath near the town of Renkum, some distance from the city of Arnhem. In supply containers hanging from parachutes, just about everything was dropped: food, radios, bicycles and this British Welbike single-seat motorcycle.

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73. SPERRGEBIET WARNING

From the collection of the National Liberation Museum1944-1945, Groesbeek

h 80 cm x w 100 cm
1940-1945

Dutch cities and villages were filled with signboards: displaying instructions and warnings in German. Most were for practical purposes, for instance to help people find different German government offices. But there were also signs with a more threatening tone, like this one indicating a Sperrgebiet: an area restricted to everybody without official clearance.

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74. TREES’ DIARY ABOUT ‘MARKET GARDEN’

From the collection of the National Liberation Museum1944-1945, Groesbeek

h 22 cm x w 17 cm
1944

Trees Schretlen wrote on 18 September 1944: ‘The battle for Nijmegen has begun.’ The Americans and British have arrived to liberate the city. Trees kept a diary in the high school agenda she purchased for her junior year. Given all the schools had been closed, she no longer needed it for her classes. She drew a radio in the margin with the caption ‘Forward to the final victory.’

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75. ‘REGISTRATION BUREAU, WAR VOLUNTEERS’

From the collection of the Achterhoeks Museum, Hengelo

h 43 cm x w 90 cm
1942-1945

There were youngsters in the liberated south of the Netherlands who were eager to join the armed struggle. On 1 October 1944 the exiled Dutch government in London reached the Oorlogsvrijwilligersbesluit (Lit. War Volunteers Decision): allowing Dutch males, ages 18 to 36 years, to volunteer for deployment in Europe or in the Dutch East Indies, which was occupied by the Japanese.

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76. CROMWELL BATTLE TANK

From the collection of the Overloon War Museum

1944

For more than four years, the village of Overloon in the eastern part of the Dutch province of Brabant went untouched by the Second World War. Of course residents saw German soldiers in their streets, but they were spared the wartime violence. That changed dramatically in the fall of 1944.

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77. POLISH LIBERATOR’S UNIFORM

From the collection of the General Maczek Museum, Breda

h 60 cm x w 70 cm
1944

Shouting with joy, the population of Breda welcomed their liberators on 29 October 1944. Surprisingly enough those troops turned out to be Polish. After fierce fighting under the leadership of General Maczek, the 1st Polish Armoured Division had managed to liberate the Dutch city from the Germans.

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78. ROYAL LIBERATION DRESS

From the collection of the Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam

h 52 cm x w 50 cm
1944

In 1944, a little Jewish girl named Elianne Muller wore this dress made of parachute material – dyed orange – during the Liberation celebration that took place in the village of Neerkant in the Dutch province of Brabant. It went beautifully with her reddish curls. The family Thijssen, who had been hiding the girl, made her this dress for this festive occasion.

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79. GERMAN SUBMACHINE GUN

From the collection of the Zeeland Liberation Museum

h 28 cm x w 62 cm.
1944-1945

When Lieutenant Bas Groeneweg disarmed a young German soldier he had taken prisoner during the liberation of Zeeland, he did not hesitate for a moment.

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80. AMERICAN WATER WEASEL

From the collection of the Zeeland Liberation Museum

1944

After the September 1944 defeat during the Battle of Arnhem, taking control of the mouth of the River Scheldt in Belgium was a priority for the Allies. This strategic move would give them access to the waterway leading to the city of Antwerp, which had already been liberated. Antwerp’s harbour was a very important supply point for the massive Allied effort. To help make this possible, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) bombed dykes at four different locations on Walcheren in the Dutch province of Zeeland, almost entirely submerging the peninsula.

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81. WOODEN WAALSDORPERVLAKTE CROSS

From the collection of the Frisian Resistance Museum

h 142 cm x w 60 cm
1941-1945

Waalsdorpervlakte, in the dunes by the Dutch seaside village of Scheveningen, was one of the most notorious spots during the Second World War. On this desolate sand plain more than 250 people were killed by the Germans.

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82. ORIGINAL BURIAL CROSS OF AN AMERICAN LIBERATOR

From the private collection of Herman Wijnhoven

h 74 cm x w 45 cm
1944

Returning from a bombing raid of Germany’s Ruhr Valley in 1944, American pilot James M. Hansen’s fighter plane ran into trouble and crashed. James was killed instantly. The Allies, who buried him in the temporary American military cemetery in the village of Molenhoek near the Dutch city of Nijmegen, placed this wooden cross on his grave.

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83. RAZZIA IN ROTTERDAM

From the collection of Museum Rotterdam / The War and Resistance Museum Rotterdam

h 187 cm x w 47 cm
1944

In the early hours of 10 November 1944, 8,000 German soldiers flooded the streets of Rotterdam. They lay a cordon around the city, took up position on the bridges and squares and shut down the telephone service. They distributed pamphlets ordering all men ages 17 to 40 years to report for tewerkstelling (employment in the service of Germany).

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84. ESCAPED WEARING TRADITIONAL BONNET

From the collection of Markt 12 - Euregionaal Freedom Museum, Aalten

h 20 cm x w 35 cm
1944

One out of every five inhabitants of the town of Aalten located in the Achterhoek, the so-called back corner in the east of the Netherlands bordering Germany, was in hiding there during the Second World War. The occupier was on constant look out for people on the run, Jews or young men trying to avoid work in the labour camps. Even the churches in town were not safe.

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85. EMBROIDERED BLOUSE

From the collection of the Indies Commemoration Centre / courtesy of Joost Bodegom

h 82 cm x w 70 cm
1944

After Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies, the Japanese occupier put 100,000 Dutch people in camps. There were separate camps for prisoners of war, for men and boys ages ten years and older and for women and children.

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86. EMERGENCY STOVE

From the private collection of the Roest family

h 50 cm x w 25 cm
1944-1945

The last winter of the war (1944-1945) was extremely icy and cold. Hunger was rampant in the west of the Netherlands, particularly in the big cities. There was also a large shortage of fuel. The supply of coal from the province of Limburg had come to a halt. To make a bad situation even worse, from November 1944 the gas and electricity in Amsterdam was often shut down. No gas, no coal, and as a result no heating. So anything flammable was burnt in makeshift stoves like this one.

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87. DOG HAIR SWEATER

From the collection of the National Liberation Museum 1944-1945, Groesbeek

h 42 cm x w 43 cm
1944-1945

During the war, little Liesbeth van Ogtrop lived with her brother Hein-Jan and her parents in the Dutch village of Eemnes. The family had a dark grey keeshond named Sten. Whenever Sten was groomed, the brush was filled with handfuls of hair. During the bitter cold winter of 1944-1945, the Van Ogtrop family did not go hungry thanks to a supply of vegetables they had grown in their garden. But textiles, coal and many other products were scarce. Then Liesbeth’s mother got the idea to put the dog hair she had accumulated to good use. An acquaintance spun some balls of wool and she knit her daughter a sweater.

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88. SHARDS OF METAL FROM A V2 ROCKET

From the private collection of Ron van Vleuten

1945

In September 1944 fourteen-year-old Ron van Vleuten, from the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood in The Hague, began to hear the menacing sounds of V2 rockets being launched in the distance: ‘Will it pass us by? Quiet. Listen. Is it going to make it? Yes... luckily it’s going further!’ Ron sighed in relief. That deadly V2 bomb didn’t fall from the sky prematurely, like so many others, but was headed for England.

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89. SOUVENIR SEAGULL WINGS

From the collection of Museon
(Museum of Science and Culture), The Hague

h 8 cm x w 32 cm
1945

The winter of 1944-1945, which was at first very rainy and then unbearably cold, led to one of the worst disasters in Dutch history. Famine threatened the lives of 3.6 million people, especially in the big cities in the west of the country.

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90. BABYHUIS ADMINISTRATION

From the collection of the War and Resistance Center Groningen(OVCG)

Thirteen malnourished babies were taken in by the clandestine Princess Margriet Babyhuis (Lit. Baby House) in Groningen because of the widespread famine in Amsterdam. A group of ladies from Groningen, acting on the initiative of Sieneke Bones, decided to help these infants through the hard winter. People in Groningen supported the project with money and food.

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91. MARLENE DIETRICH WAS HERE...

From the collection of the National Liberation Museum 1944 -1945, Groesbeek

h 21 cm x w 17 cm
1944-1945

This guest book belonged to the parents of sixteen-year-old Carla Hustinx from the city of Maastricht. Their home was a regular place to stay for singers, movie stars, athletes and comedians that came to entertain American soldiers after the south of the Netherlands was liberated in September 1944.

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92. STOLEN CUTLERY

From the collection of the National Liberation Museum 1944-1945, Groesbeek

h 18 cm x w 50 cm
1945

In the autumn of 1944, an almost twenty-nine-year old English soldier named Jim fell head-over-heels for nineteen-year-old Emelia Sluys. Emelia was staying with relatives on Groesbeekseweg in the city of Nijmegen because her home had been destroyed during the Battle of Arnhem. To his regret Emelia did not share his feelings: she also thought he was too old.

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93. THANKS TO A BISCUIT TIN

From the private collection of Milena Holdert and Judith Herzberg

h 12 cm x ø 6 cm
1943-1945

There are circumstances when your life could very well depend on something as simple as a biscuit tin. This one went with Abel Herzberg and his wife Thea on a dreadful journey. In the Westerbork Transit Camp as well as the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, it was matter of life or death to be able to safely store the little bit of food that was available from time to time.

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94. JAPANESE FLAG

From the private collection of the J. B. Leyten, LL.M.

h 140 cm x w 200 cm
1945

The text of this ‘good luck flag’, which belonged to the Japanese General Shunkichi Ikeda, reads: ’A tiger walks 1,000 miles, but always returns again’. A group of Japanese women from his place of birth embroidered this thousand-stitch saying, meant to bring him luck and prosperity.

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95. BOOTS OF THE COMMANDER OF CAMP AMERSFOORT

From the collection of the National Monument Camp Amersfoort

h 44 cm x w 29 cm
1945

Karl Berg was originally the third man in the chain of command at Camp Amersfoort and in 1943 he was appointed camp commandant. He had a reputation for being cruel and merciless. Berg was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of prisoners.

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96. CLIPPED AND SHAVED

From the collection of the Resistance Museum, Amsterdam

h 4 cm x w 15 cm
1945

Freedom! Suddenly Dutch flags were hanging all over the place and people were singing and dancing arm-in-arm in the streets. But pent-up emotions were also unleashed: ‘Kraut whores’, girls and women who had consorted with the Germans during the war, were targeted. They were dragged from their homes, marched through the streets, jeered and spit at in the days following the Liberation.

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97. JACKET WORN BY A-BOMB SURVIVOR

From the collection of Museon
(Museum of Science and Culture), The Hague

h 124 cm x w 53 cm
1945

A flash and a deafening rumble. On 9 August 1945, the American Air Force exploded an atomic bomb 500 metres above Nagasaki. The Japanese city was wiped away, 39,000 people died and 25,000 were wounded.

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98. BOX FROM ‘OUTSIDE THE CAMP’

From the collection of Museon (Museum of Science and Culture), The Hague

1942-1945

These were once the toys, clothing and medicine of Hugo Steenmeijer, the child of a Dutch father and an Indisch (East Indian) mother.

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