Joop Westerweel
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2011) |
Joop Westerweel (January 25, 1899, Zutphen – August 11, 1944, Vught)[1] was a schoolteacher,[2] a non-conformist socialist and a Christian anarchist[3] who became a Dutch World War II resistance leader, the head of the Westerweel Group.
Westerweel, along with Joachim Simon and other Jewish colleagues, helped save around 200 to 300 Jews by organizing an escape route, smuggling Jews through Belgium, France and on into neutral Switzerland and Spain. He was arrested on March 10, 1944, after leading a group of Jewish children to safety in Spain, whilst on his way back to the Netherlands at the Dutch/Belgian border. He was executed at Herzogenbusch concentration camp in August 1944.[1]
Life[]
Joop Westerweel was a charismatic personality and unadulterated rebel. He was born in Zutphen in 1899. His parents later became members of the Plymouth Brethren, a Protestant renewal movement from England. Their inspiration was the first Christian movements, coupled with reverence for the Old Testament. Joop broke with the Brethren at a young age, but the Bible remained a source of inspiration to him.
He was around 1920 politically active on the left of the social democratic SDAP. In the early 1920s he moved to the Dutch East Indies as a teacher, but his political conviction and pacifism caused him problems there. After refusing to follow a militia training, he was imprisoned for several months and then sent back to the Netherlands.
Westerweel then went to work as a teacher at an elementary school in an Amsterdam working-class neighbourhood and later with his wife Wil at the progressive educational institution Kinderwerkplaats in Bilthoven. After a conflict there he became head of a Montessori school in Rotterdam in May 1940.[4]
Righteous Among the Nations[]
On June 16, 1964, Yad Vashem recognized Johan Gerard Westerweel and his wife, Wilhelmina Dora Westerweel-Bosdriesz, as Righteous Among the Nations.
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b Presser, Jacques (1998). Ashes in the Wind: The Destruction of Dutch Jewry. Wayne State University Press. p. 283. ISBN 978-0-8143-2036-5.
- ^ Johan (Joop) Westerweel | "Their Fate Will Be My Fate Too…" Teachers Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust An online exhibition by Yad Vashem. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
- ^ Warren I. Cohen: Profiles in Humanity: The Battle for Peace, Freedom, Equality, and Human Rights ; Chapter 10; page 158
- ^ This paragraph is based on Chapter 3 ("Joop Westerweel and the Left-Wing Radical Milieu in the 1920s and 1930s, pp. 33-59) in: Schippers, Hans. 2019. Westerweel Group: Non-Conformist Resistance Against Nazi Germany: A Joint Rescue Effort of Dutch Idealists and Dutch-German Zionists. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110582703. (Paperback published in 2020: 9783110736823).
External links[]
- Teachers Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust. Yad Vashem
- ONA SIMAITE, JOOP WESTERWEEL, IRENA SENDLEROWA. USHMM
| hide Authority control  | |
|---|---|
| General |
|
| National libraries | |
| Other | |
  | This article about a person from the Netherlands is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by . |
- 1889 births
- 1944 deaths
- People from Zutphen
- Dutch people who died in Nazi concentration camps
- Dutch resistance members
- Dutch Righteous Among the Nations
- Christian anarchists
- Dutch anarchists
- Dutch Christians
- Anarcho-pacifists
- Dutch people of World War II
- Dutch people executed by Nazi Germany
- Dutch people executed in Nazi concentration camps
- Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany
- Deaths by firearm in the Netherlands
- Dutch people stubs