Transitional Justice and the Dutch Resistance What does the functioning of the National Honour Court of the Resistance tell us about the practice of resistance during the occupation and its legitimization through the resistance myth afterwards? Janneke Jorna Master thesis University of Amsterdam Program: Holocaust and Genocide Studies Student number: 11077050 Supervisors: Bas von Benda-Beckmann; Johannes Houwink ten Cate ECTS: 18 Hand-in date: 1 juli 2018 Table of contents Introduction 3 Chapter 1 – Resistance and Special Justice 20 Chapter 2 – Betrayal 39 Chapter 3 – Assassination 56 Chapter 4 – Robbery 70 Conclusion 84 Bibliography 90 Photograph frontpage: The armed civilians employed by the Internal Armed Forces (possibly the family Havedings). OVGC, copyright unknown. 2 Official history, with its oversights and the vocabulary used to recount it, varies according to regimes and eras. It reflects a community’s present state of mind with respect to its past more than what really happened.1 The resistance struggling for democracy and against Nazi occupation during the Second World War is a very important part of the founding myths of the modern European states. Derived from this founding myth is the so-called resistance mythology, based on ‘redemptive violence’: violence that is ‘perceived to be necessary’.2 The image of the resistance embodied the myth of modern European states rebirth by violence.3 Two integral elements of this myth are the maintenance of national unity during the occupation period and the recovery afterwards. In each country, different forms of unified resistance appeared, similar to how the German occupation had taken different forms. Is it even possible to speak of the resistance? The Dutch historian Chris van der Heijden proposed using quotation marks, as 'the resistance' has never existed as such.4 In reality, Dutch resistance was a collection of different organizations, networks, people and activities, which did not have aligned goals or guidelines. Resistance is an extremely complicated phenomenon, which manifests itself differently in various countries, even regions, and changes over time. For instance, resistance activities in Eastern and Western Europe are almost incomparable. This partly resulted from the different conditions, as the geographical circumstances influences the feasibility of guerrilla activities. Resistance in Eastern Europe and the severe German counter measures derailed daily life on a massive scale. The early historiographical work on the Second World War and resistance in the Netherlands, Onderdrukking en Verzet. Nederland in oorlogstijd, contained the unofficial retrospective view of the Dutch establishment on the occupation period. Willem Drees wrote the preface and multiple high-ranking resisters wrote chapters based upon their own experience and knowledge. The former resister Jan Meulenbelt, who was involved with 1 Jacques Sémelin, Unarmed against Hitler. Civilian resistance in Europe, 1939-1943 (London 1993) 24. 2 Ibidem. 3 Ibidem. 4 Chris van der Heijden, Dat nooit meer. De nasleep van de Tweede Wereldoorlog in Nederland (Amsterdam 2011) 115. 3 rescuing Jewish children5, mentioned: 'the Netherlands are no Balkans, and the Dutch people are no Balkan people, who from a young age are familiar with the reality or the eventuality of underground resistance against occupiers.6 The American historian István Deák emphasized that in the Benelux ‘the terrain was of little use to the resisters, although the Dutch could hide in flooded areas, and Belgium as well as Luxembourg has some forests and hills.’7 Also, within Western Europe itself resistance varied extremely. For instance, the partly neighboring countries of Belgium, France and the Netherlands had completely different occupational government forms. While Belgium had a military administration, a civilian administrator governed the Netherlands, and France was divided into two zones with different administrations and forms of collaboration. The various German occupational policies greatly influenced the timing, form, and extent of resistance inside the occupied societies.8 When the relations between the occupied and the occupier started deteriorating slowly, resistance in Western Europe increased. Its nature also changed over time. The French historian and sociologist Jacques Sémelin even made a distinction between ‘pre-Stalingrad and post-Stalingrad resistance.’9 As the military situation on the battlefield changed in favor of the Allied forces, hope of ending the occupation grew in the occupied societies. Deák also used the example of Stalingrad; the German forces were perceived to be on the losing side from that moment on.10 Thus, how do we define the general term of resistance? Van der Heijden raised an important question: when can we qualify someone to be a resister, 'only if the person in question has written a pamphlet or used weapons? Or also if the person in question has passed on a pamphlet, has helped someone in hiding, or has kept a secret?'11 British historian Bob Moore stated that 'the very definition of resistance is part of each country's national historiography on the subject'.12 According to Sémelin, ‘the goal of the resistance 5 Johannes Houwink ten Cate, Het geheime dagboek van Arnold Douwes, Jodenredder (Amsterdam 2018) 42. Jan Meulenbelt was one of the leaders of the Utrechts Kindercomite. 6 Johannes Jacob van Bolhuis (red.), Onderdrukking en verzet. Nederland in oorlogstijd (Arnhem 1949-1954), part 4, 61. 7 István Deák, Europe on Trial. The Story of Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution during World War II (Boulder 2015) 124. 8 Sémelin, Unarmed against Hitler, 9-10. 9 Idem, 33. 10 István Deák, Jan T. Gross, Tony Judt, The Politics of Retribution in Europe. World War II and its aftermath (Princeton 2000) 176. 11 van der Heijden, Dat nooit meer, 111. 12 Bob Moore, (ed), Resistance in Western Europe (Oxford 2000) 2. 4 was either to reconstruct the collective identity of an attacked society that was more or less involved in a collaboration process or to preserve a collective identity by trying to keep its population from being willing to collaborate with the occupier.’13 As a result, the goals were mostly political, and ‘based on the defence or revival of national and patriotic values.’14 Because the direct military approach mostly failed, resistance focused on a more indirect approach in countering the occupier and its local henchmen. Sémelin divided this strategy into two categories, distinguishing between armed and civilian resistance; the first employed guerrilla activities and the second ‘tries to involve the whole civil society.’15 Following, Sémelin further distinguished three circles of social mobilization. The first circle encompassed all the militants from the various movements and their activities. The second circle contained all those providing an ‘occasional helping hand or the providential aid spontaneously offered to a resister about to be arrested.’16 The third circle was ‘much more far-reaching’ and included passive complicity. All these circles were important: ‘in a certain way, opinion protects resistance, while resistance acts in the name of the opinion that supports it.’17 Therefore, resistance could not subsist without the support of at least some parts of society. On the other hand, acts of resistance were not undisputed. Firstly, debate within resistance organizations during the occupation was ever-present, displaying a lack of unity. There was no unambiguous view on what resistance should entail and which acts of resistance were legitimized. The discussion on the legitimacy of assassination was especially fierce within resistance organizations. There was no uniform moral code for the Dutch resistance and therefore room for discrepancy. This ambiguousness had created problems regarding the legitimization of resistance. How were acts of resistance to be legitimized when there was disagreement within resistance organizations on the rules? Secondly, Dutch society as a whole was not unanimously in favor of ‘the resistance’. While Sémelin emphasized that parts of society had to be supportive of resistance organizations in order for resistance to exist, this did not mean that the entire Dutch society was fond of ‘the resistance’ during the course of the occupation. Critique on the Dutch 13 Sémelin, Unarmed against Hitler, 106. 14 Ibidem. 15 Ibidem. 16 Ibidem. 17 Ibidem. 5 resistance was present from the beginning of the occupation and continued into the post- war era. This criticism forced resistance organizations to look for ways to legitimize their acts of resistance, both during and after the occupation. This need for legitimization contributed to the emergence of the resistance myth, which already began to take shape during the occupation and continued forming afterwards. Dutch historian Johannes Houwink ten Cate stated that the definition problem originated from the broadness of the concept of total war during the Second World War. He emphasized resistance was defined as any act that opposed the enemy, while ‘at that time, collaboration was regarded as any act that was supportive of the enemy’.18 Both the concept of supporting and opposing the enemy were difficult to define, which created opportunities for using and abusing these concepts within the practice of political justice. In the post-war Netherlands, the history of collaboration was pushed to the background; the history of resistance formed a worthy substitution. This repression of collaboration formed the basis for