On This Day in History: March 27

Willem Arondeus resists the Nazis

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Willem Arondeus was born in the Netherlands in 1894. He was openly gay at a time when almost no one was. As a member of the Dutch Resistance, he also fought the fucking Nazis when they invaded his home. It cost him his life, but he went out like a goddamn hero.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: March 27, 1943--

Arondeus was an artist and an author. The Nazi cockgoblins invaded the Netherlands in May of 1940 and it fell in five days. In 1942 Willem turned his talents to creating an underground publication to slag the Nazis for being fucking Nazis. Through that work he met other members of the resistance and also set his skills toward forging identity documents to help protect Jews against deportation and death.

But there was a problem with the forgeries; they could be checked against the Municipal Office for Population Registration to determine legitimacy. So they said fuck it lets blow the place up. Disguised as cops, Arondeus and his fellow resistance fighters arrived at the registry on the night of March 27, 1943. They said to the security guards we heard this place was gonna get blowed up we need to check for bombs. The guards said oh okay sure and let them in and two of the resistance fighters who were med students went stabby on the two guards with phenobarbital and knocked them the fuck out. They dragged them into a nearby building to hide them while they slept it off.

They piled registration cards and soaked them in benzene. Then they set time bombs and got the fuck out, stealing some cash to help fund the resistance and also taking blank cards to create more forgeries. The fire department had been tipped off and arrived quickly to put out the fire, but these were Dutch firefighters so they soaked the everloving fuck out of the building “just to make sure,” but really to use water to damage as many records as possible.

It was a partial success. Eight hundred thousand cards were destroyed, representing 15% of the total. There is no question that the efforts were successful in saving many Dutch Jews from extermination.

But those Nazi assbags put up a reward and some motherfucker ratted out Arondeus and he was arrested the following month. He refused to name anyone else involved in the plot, but unfortunately the fucking Gestapo found his notebook and 13 others were arrested. All 14 were sentenced to death, but Arondeus pleaded guilty and took all the blame, which resulted in two of them being granted clemency.

While awaiting execution Arondeus was visited by his attorney and fellow resistance fighter Laura Mazirel. Willem said to her, “Tell the world that gays are no less courageous than anyone else.” Mazirel would go on to be an early advocate of LGBT rights after the war. Many of those involved in the bombing, including Arondeus, were later honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for their efforts to save Jews from the Holocaust.

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