Much has been written about the role of the illegal CPN and the arrest of its leaders in the spring of 1943. Of course, in the historiography of Dr. L. de Jong, but also in other books and articles published in response to the events during the years 1940-1945. For example, in 1986, Elseviers Magazine published an extensive article entitled “How the Germans rolled up the CPN”. Another magazine published an article describing how those events were rewritten after the war by the CPN leadership under the influence of Paul de Groot.
Added to this chapter.
Postscript ‘The Vosveld case’.
I have a small collection of these publications and several photo books that provide a picture of the Netherlands and the Dutch people during the five years of occupation. When writing this story, they were a welcome aid in putting the facts and events in the right order.
Although the content was not new to me, I found it fascinating reading once again. Yet my amazement continues to grow. This has been the case for years and increases as the war recedes further into the past. What happened then, how it happened, how people allowed it to happen, seems to me more and more like a film with an almost unbelievable scenario.
The resistance
After the capitulation in May 1940, individual resistance to the occupiers began fairly quickly. The German police probably watched this with amusement at first. One of the remarkable things about this was that they could often count on the voluntary assistance of the Dutch police. The basis for this cooperation had been laid years before the war. For example, since 1935, a number of people from the Hague police had been cooperating with the police in Wuppertal, compiling files on people who were not sympathetic to the NSB and Hitler’s Germany.
During the occupation, several of these Hague residents entered German service. They involved their Dutch colleagues in the investigation of communists, Allied agents and resistance groups.
From its inception, the illegal CPN was led by a triumvirate: Paul de Groot, Jan Dieters and my father. Among other things, this leadership established an organisation for sabotage work. Participants were recruited from former conscripts, former Spanish Civil War fighters and other members. In groups of five, these sabotage groups attempted to fight the occupiers. To avoid detection, they had to operate under the strictest security measures possible.
In Amsterdam, which was an important centre of the resistance, the SD initially proved unable to cope with its tasks. This changed in the spring of 1941 when the notorious Willy Lages arrived to put things in order. Under his leadership, hundreds of people were arrested by the Gestapo after the February strike, for example.
After that, the SD made only slow progress in their work to uncover the names and whereabouts of the various resistance groups. Nevertheless, they managed to infiltrate the illegal organisation with the help of informants. In this way, on 1 April 1943, Piet Vosveld, who was a courier between the illegal CPN organisation in Amsterdam and the aforementioned trio, fell into the hands of the Gestapo in Amsterdam.
The Germans succeeded in breaking his resistance, among other things by threatening to send his wife and children to a concentration camp, and thus discovered an appointment he had made with Jan Dieters for 3 April. Accompanied by the SD, he then travelled to Apeldoorn on the appointed date, where the meeting was to take place at the Ruimzicht hotel.
As agreed, Dieters arrived at the appointed time. Vosveld saw him coming but did nothing. The Germans did, and in this way Dieters fell into their hands.
As luck would have it, de Groot had unexpectedly accompanied Dieters that day. As a standard security measure, however, he had not accompanied Dieters but had followed him at a considerable distance. Unnoticed by the Gestapo, he witnessed Dieters being overpowered.
Naturally, he fled and is believed to have walked through the woods to Zutphen. He was so shaken by the incident that he hid himself away, unreachable by anyone, for the rest of the war. Somehow, he waited out the end of the war legally in Zwolle, under a different name, of course.
But the blow dealt by the Germans was made even greater by de Groot’s subsequent negligence. He failed to warn the third member of their trio, an unwritten duty in such cases.
The agreement was that if one of the three was arrested, he would not reveal any information about the whereabouts of the others for at least three days. Three days was the time they had deemed sufficient for the others to escape. Dieters endured the interrogations and only provided my father’s address after three days, assuming that he had been able to flee in time. However, due to de Groot’s failure to act, this had not happened.
The question remains whether that would have been possible. For example, was there a telephone in the Calluna Alba villa? I couldn’t remember, but through Delpher we managed to look up the telephone directory. The Gelderland guidebook in which Eerbeek was listed.
It turned out that there was a telephone. Number 233 in the name of M. Versteeg van Leeuwen.
The Amsterdam population register. Destroyed after an attack by the resistance.
How the Gestapo struck in Eerbeek
The Gestapo arrived in the dead of night on 6 April 1943. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, we were staying with Aunt Mieke in Eerbeek for the second time. I was a light sleeper, so I heard their voices from the moment they entered. Later, I heard th , Aunt Mieke had tried to send them away, but the men were sure of themselves and forced their way into the house without much ado. The story goes that they expected to find Paul de Groot. My father’s response that he did not know anyone named de Groot was unsuccessful, as was an earlier attempt to escape through an open window.
Was I afraid? I certainly was. In fact, I lay there anxiously waiting for them to enter my bedroom, which they did after about ten minutes. Two of them came in, dressed in long black leather coats. One left fairly quickly, but the other, a Dutchman, started asking what my brother’s name was and who else was in the house.
The youngest children had never been given instructions for such situations. I only knew that I had to mention my eldest brother, Ferdinand. My two sisters had been staying with an ‘aunt’ in Velp for some time, and I understood that I had to keep quiet about that. So at that moment, there were only five Jansens in the house in Eerbeek, Aunt Mieke and Bep, a young woman of about twenty-five from Arnhem.
The man in the black coat wanted to know my surname. I didn’t know. That is to say, I didn’t know what illegal surname we were using, so I pretended that I really didn’t know. And was that Ferdinand’s real name? Yes, Ferdinand, I was quite sure of that.
I don’t remember how long this conversation lasted, but it couldn’t have been more than five minutes. Then the man in the black coat disappeared again and I was left behind, trembling with fear.
After about half an hour, I had to get dressed and all the residents of the house were taken away.
My father, Fred and Aunt Mieke were probably taken to Amsterdam.
My mother, Bep, my youngest brother and I made a night-time drive through the dark woods. Every now and then, the car’s headlights were turned on for a moment because visibility was almost zero. I didn’t know where we were going.
Okkie or Piggelmee in the detention centre
Our final destination turned out to be the detention centre in Arnhem, where we were housed in a fairly large room. I still remember the smelly toilet bucket and the guards who came in from time to time. And, of course, the anxious and tense wait to see what would happen next.
We hardly slept during the rest of that night because of all the emotions we had experienced. Strangely enough, my mother and Bep behaved very calmly and quietly.
Nothing happened the next morning. A female guard gave me a few books by Piggelmee or Okkie. In my memory, they were by Leonard Roggeveen, but I wonder if he was already writing at that time. Well, maybe they were by someone else. But I can still clearly picture that little man Piggelmee who lived in a barrel.
After that, books by Okkie and Daantje (which are definitely by Roggeveen) always immediately bring to mind associations with smelly toilet bins and detention centres.
In the afternoon, my youngest brother and I were taken away. We were hardly given time to say goodbye to my mother. ‘Those children’ were taken away by three men in black coats, with a suitcase of clothes .
Panic set in, of course. What was going to happen to us? Outside, we had to get into an open military vehicle and one of the three men drove us away.
On the way, the three of them were busy talking to each other in a mixture of German and Dutch. A few times I caught something about ‘the children’, but most of it remained gibberish to me.
After an hour’s drive, my destination turned out to be Eerbeek, much to my surprise. After some searching, the journey ended at a large country house on the outskirts of the village. The house in Eerbeek, which housed a large group of children from Scheveningen, was apparently our new home. But of course, I didn’t know that at the time.
How we fared there is a story in itself, which I will save for the next chapter.
The ‘betrayal’ of Vosveld is described in a number of books, including that of Lou de Jong. It is remarkable that the versions of the events that took place differ in a number of details. I have therefore compiled all the known facts from 1935 onwards into an overview and turned it into a separate story that can be found on www.dewereldvangajus.nl.
Postscript 1
Summary of the Vosveld case
In this episode, I describe the events that took place between 1 and 6 April 1943, followed by the role that Piet Vosveld played in them.
How he started out as a member of the resistance in 1940, then acted as an accomplice of the SD from April 1943 onwards.
How he fled to England after the liberation and, after a five-year stay there, was extradited to the Dutch authorities.
The trials against him for his role as a traitor/accomplice of the SD and the ultimately decisive advice of the Council of Discipline for Illegality.
Finally, his possible role in business life. The story of a P.O.C. Vosveld who, together with his investment advisor, stood trial for corruption in 1972–1973. Because he died, Vosveld escaped punishment.
This is a summary of the stories of Lou de Jong, J.W. Stutje, Ger Verrips, Hansje Galesloot, the report of the Council of Honour, reports in newspapers and magazines, and my own experiences.
Who was Piet Vosveld? What role did he play in the resistance?
P.O.C. (Piet) Vosveld was born in Amsterdam on 5 November 1911. His parents were Pieter Otto Christiaan Vosveld, born on 2 January 1890 in The Hague, who married Geertje Kooistra from Franeker on 21 June 1911.
Father Vosveld earned his living as a window cleaner, street vendor and café owner, among other things. The family lived at various addresses in Amsterdam. Then at Birkstraat 17 in Soest. Subsequently in Amsterdam, Assendelft, Krommenie and again Amsterdam. Father Vosveld died on 15 March 1956.
Son P.O.C. Vosveld married Agnes Maria Dorothea on 24 August 1932; the couple had two daughters, born in 1933 and 1937 respectively. After living at various addresses, the family moved to Beverwijk on 6 April 1939. A third daughter was born in 1942.
In one of the books I cited (de Jong), Piet Vosveld is described as a security guard in his thirties from Beverwijk. Another book, in its description of the period 1942-1943, refers to a 32-year-old resident of Beverwijk whose parents ran a pub in Soest.
I have not been able to find a photograph of him from that period. However, I did find a photograph from the 1960s when he was director of the Selected International Fund SIF.
The report of the disciplinary committee states that after primary school he attended secondary school and lived with his parents until 10 September 1932. It also states that he was rejected for military service.
In newspaper reports, he was referred to as both Vosveldt and Vosveld. Initials in reports in De Telegraaf were P.O.Ch. instead of P.O.C. Het Vrije Volk once referred to him as Pieter Otto Christiaan Vosveldt.
The name Vosveld is relatively common. In the Amsterdam population register, I found two men named P.O.C. Vosveld. One was born on 2 January 1890 and the other on 5 November 1911. The latter would have reached the age of 32 in 1943. It is clear that this refers to Piet Vosveld from the resistance and his father.
The population register lists the following dates for P.O.C. Vosveld, born on 5 November 1911:
24 August 1931 Leaves the parental home. The card states that his profession is cook at My Nederland.
5 February 1932 Returns to his parents. Then lives at Wilhelminastraat 67.
25-08-32 Ambonplein 28.
6 April 1939 Beverwijk
23-09-41 Card from his wife mentions a PO box address
17-12-43 Soest, Birkstraat 17
08-09-45 Card from wife mentions Kanaalstraat in Amsterdam
04-02-46 Card from his wife mentions Kanaalstraat in Amsterdam
02-03-46 VOW (abbreviation for Vertrokken Onbekend Waarheen, meaning ‘Departed, destination unknown’)
10-06-51 Card from wife mentions London, Woodstock Road
24-04-52 Card from wife mentions Roggevaartstraat in Amsterdam
23-07-52 Card from wife mentions Tugelaweg
10-09-52 Havenstraat Amsterdam. House of Detention
09-03-53 Card from wife mentions Kijkduin Street
23-04-54 Kijkduin Street
02-10-58 Haarlemmermeer
02-05-60 Roden, Drenthe Population register card lists occupation as: representative, manufacturer, director
13-01-62 Amsterdam
31-08-62 Nieuwer Amstel, Populierenlaan 503
04-05-64 Marriage dissolved
03-01-65 ZWIT (unknown abbreviation)
12-01-66 Amstelveen, Populierenlaan 503
03-10-66 Wife remarried, continued to live with her new husband in Amstelveen
23-12-69 Amsterdam, Stadionweg
17-10-70 Amstelveen, Matterhorn
Piet Vosveld was already a member of the CPN before the war, living in Beverwijk at the time and assisting Daan Gouloze – the CPN’s liaison with the Comintern – in sending messages between 1934 and 1937. One of Gouloze’s radio transmitters was located in his home.
According to the report of the Disciplinary Council, he was a representative until 1934, moved to Beverwijk in 1938, where he started a radio shop. He ran this until 1940, after which he started a small factory producing tea substitutes.
He is said to have become a member of the CPH in 1933 and to have resigned in 1937 because the party wanted to send him to Spain. For a number of reasons, including his wife’s illness, he refused and resigned his membership. In 1940, the party is said to have contacted him to ask him to take Jan Dieters and Piet Vooren into his small business.
At the beginning of the war, he was one of the first members of the resistance. Under the cover of a lucrative trade in tea substitutes, he and metal turner Piet Vooren, who had returned to Haarlem shortly before the outbreak of the war after spending many years in the Soviet Union and had joined his company as a sales representative, became instructors for the national party leadership and couriers for Jan Dieters. When Vooren withdrew, that role became more important. Under the alias ter Heide, Vosveld provided the trio with false identity cards and hiding places, among other things.
Vosveld was described as a man of somewhat slight build, with dark hair combed back and a thin moustache à la Clark Gable. Some people found him to be a somewhat nervous man who did not always have his ambition under control. Piet Vooren, among others, shared this opinion. Vooren said he felt sidelined by Vosveld’s elbow tactics. Combined with Gouloze’s pre-war experiences with Vosveld, this raises the question in retrospect whether Vosveld’s promotion to chief liaison with the triumvirate was such a wise move.
In chapter 15, I briefly described how the trio of Groot Jansen Dieters was eliminated by the SD.
First, a little background information.
In mid-October 1942, the SD raided Paul de Groot’s hiding place in Zutphen. De Groot managed to escape thanks to a manoeuvre by his daughter. However, his wife and daughter were arrested and deported to Auschwitz on 30 October, where they were gassed.
De Groot went into hiding in Dieren and then again in Zutphen.
In the second half of 1942, the Sicherheitspolizei arrested more and more illegal workers.
All these actions posed an enormous threat to the resistance. It became increasingly difficult for the trio to provide effective leadership, mainly because couriers were often among those arrested.
It sometimes took months before new connections could be established with cut-off groups. As a result, by early 1943, the trio only had regular contact with the districts of Amsterdam, Haarlem, the Zaanstreek, Twente and Tilburg.
On 3 February 1943, Jan Janzen, organiser of the illegal newspaper De Waarheid and leader of the Amsterdam district, was arrested. At the same time, J. Posthumus and C. Aernouts were also arrested. The latter two were executed six months later.
Janzen’s interrogations began on 4 February 1943. The SD responded to the rule in the underground that arrestees had to remain silent for two times twenty-four hours to give contacts the opportunity to disappear.
The interrogation was extremely harsh, but as the interrogators noted in their report, at 11.50 p.m. on 6 February, he revealed the name and address of Lou Jansen. The SD immediately raided the Schoutenweg in Deventer. Lou Jansen escaped because he happened to be in Amsterdam, writes de Jong. This story does not add up because, in that case, we, the family, would have been arrested. However, we had already left, probably to the hiding place in Eerbeek.
Bertus Webeling – the Jansens’ neighbour in Amsterdam before the war, who settled in Deventer with his family in May 1940 as an unknown, quiet man in order to provide the CPN leader with a safe haven – managed to save himself because he happened to see the intruders driving up. He managed to hide between the ceiling of the living room and the floor of the upper floor just in time and remained there, keeping quiet in the winter cold for almost two days. His wife and their three-year-old daughter were taken to the SD in Rotterdam. (Everything turned out well for the Webeling family in the end. See the appendix about the Schoutenweg
Jansen’s arrest made the trio feel even more threatened than before, as he was aware of many of their activities. Arrest was imminent, their connection with the party was insufficient, the newspaper apparatus had been disrupted by Jan Jansen’s arrest, and they set their sights on three reserves to continue their work.
Shortly after the events in Zutphen and Deventer, there was talk of setting up a commission for party security under the leadership of Vosveld. However, that was probably not enough for them. They decided to look for new hiding places and to introduce a new intermediary between themselves and the illegal party. Direct party leadership would be transferred to Jaap Brandenburg and Gerrit van den Bosch (who had served as a courier for the triumvirate since the beginning of the war); they would remain in contact with the triumvirate exclusively through one trusted courier, P.O.C. Vosveld. Vosveld would only hold discussions with Dieters, who was in hiding in Apeldoorn; Dieters would then inform de Groot and Jansen.
In the second half of February 1943, during a meeting in restaurant De Poort van Cleeff in Apeldoorn, Jan Dieters informed Piet Vosveld that the trio had decided to withdraw and that a new leadership had to be formed, consisting of Jaap Brandenburg, Gerrit van den Bosch and Piet Vosveld himself.
The new leadership had to work independently but remain in contact with the ‘ ‘ trio via Jan Dieters, who apparently did not want to relinquish leadership completely. Contrary to the usual course of events, Dieters was accompanied by Lou Jansen during this meeting.
It was agreed that Vosveld would meet Dieters on dates to be determined separately in or near Apeldoorn.
What happened in the following month is not described anywhere. I cannot imagine that the old management sat twiddling their thumbs for five or six weeks waiting for a response.
However, at the end of March (de Jong), an appointment was made for Vosveld to visit Dieters at 2 p.m. on 2 April for a meeting at Café Ruimzicht in Apeldoorn. Vosveld was to bring a new identity card for de Groot on this occasion. On the same day, he was supposed to have an appointment at 9 a.m. with the new leader of the Amsterdam district, Jan Postma. So he wouldn’t forget the appointments for that day, he wrote them down along with other appointments in cryptic notes on a piece of paper that he hid in the brim of his hat; the dates weren’t included.
During the trial after the war (1952) and before the Disciplinary Council, Vosveld insisted that the appointment with Postma was for Thursday 1 April. The girlfriend with whom Dieters lived stated that Dieters had told her on Wednesday 31 March that he would meet Vosveld on 2 April. If the date of 1 April mentioned by Vosveld had also applied to the appointment with Dieters, Dieters would have made appointments for three consecutive days – 1, 2 and 3 April. De Jong considered it unlikely that an experienced underground worker such as Dieters would have done this, especially as it was contrary to the security rules agreed within the CPN.
Back to 30 March. On that day and on the 31st,the new leadership met for the first time at the home of Vosveld’s parents in Soest, who ran a café there. (Verrips)
There were doubts about the willingness of the successors to take over the task of the triumvirate. Brandenburg is said to have wondered why de Groot had to be reserved for work after the war, while he himself was considered good enough to die as a hero in battle.
However, this did not prevent them from accepting the task assigned to them. It was agreed that Vosveld would inform the trio that they would not tolerate any interference from the old leadership.
It was agreed that they would meet again in Soest on 6 April to discuss the response to this.
Vosveld would bring two blank identity cards with stamps and fingerprinting equipment to his meeting with Dieters. Verrips does not mention a date for this meeting in his book.
It is strange that Vosveld would only bring two blank identity cards. But it is possible that one was intended for Dieters and the second for de Groot. Lou Jansen would also have needed copies for his family.
However, on Thursday 1 April, Vosveld was arrested by the SD at six o’clock in the morning in Beverwijk. They were looking for Jan ter Heide, whose name appeared in a letter from Henk Schonhagen, an instructor from Zaandam who had been arrested in Amsterdam the previous night. That letter mentioned sabotage at the Hembrug munitions factory and Paris green, a chemical compound used in the manufacture of explosives.
In de Jong’s version, Vosveld had to get dressed and was taken to Euterpestraat in Amsterdam. He had put on his hat. The SD searched it and found the note on which he had written down his appointments. Although it was encrypted, he remained silent about the meaning of the notes on the piece of paper, despite threats that he would be shot. He held out all day Thursday and part of Friday. According to his statements during the trial after the war, his resistance only broke when he was shown the body of a communist he knew in the cellars of the Euterpestraat office, who had hanged himself after the interrogations. He gave an explanation for the notes on the piece of paper in his hat and also said that the meeting with Dieters would take place on Saturday 3 April at two o’clock in Deventer. (During his trial in 1952/53, he claimed that the meeting with Dieters was to take place on 1 April and that he hoped Dieters would have concluded that something was wrong from the fact that he had not appeared on that date or on 2 April.)
He made a different statement to the Disciplinary Council. He claimed that on 1 April he had been taken to the detention centre on Weteringschans. On 3 April, he was suddenly transported to Euterpestraat, where he was confronted with his hat, in the band of which he had hidden small notes with details of his appointments.
After a confrontation with a communist acquaintance who had committed suicide after the interrogations, Piet broke down and revealed his appointments with Jan Dieters. Among other places, in Apeldoorn at two o’clock that day.
Accompanied by SD officers, he travelled to Apeldoorn on Saturday. The agreement was that Dieters would always watch the trains from a distance beforehand and verify that Vosveld had arrived. According to his statement to the Disciplinary Council, Vosveld was quickly taken to Apeldoorn after his confession and had to walk to the station, followed by a number of SD officers, and from there to the Ruimzicht café. On the way, he had encountered Paul de Groot, who did not recognise him. Normally, Dieters always followed him from the station. Vosveld expected that this would not happen this time and that he would not come to the café either. Forty minutes after the agreed time, however, Dieters stormed in, only to disappear again after a short conversation. Vosveld failed to warn him. He would have seen through the windows of the café that Dieters was being arrested outside by the SD. This was witnessed by Paul de Groot, who is said to have observed the event from behind a window a short distance away. That same evening, Vosveld was released by the SD.
This leaves the unexplained presence of de Groot. He had apparently agreed with Dieters to meet him in Ruimzicht, probably to receive the identity card he had been promised. After Dieters’ arrest, de Groot left the place where he had witnessed the event as quickly as he could. Presumably in a panic, he fled Apeldoorn, without thinking to warn Lou Jansen or being able to do so, and after being helped by party members in the IJssel region via a number of hiding places, he finally found shelter in Zwolle in March 1944 with a woman who had never had anything to do with the CPN. He is said to have remained there until liberation, working as a civil servant at the distribution office, potato department, under the name de Vries.
In his book, Fritz Reuter has de Groot reappear after the liberation on 10 May at a meeting of the former illegal leadership of the party, which he himself had also attended. (The Communist Party of the Netherlands in Wartime. Memories). There, one of the members raised the question of whether de Groot should be expelled from the party as a deserter. Taking the circumstances into account, those present considered this excessive and the subject was never raised again.
In Verrips’ version of events, Vosveld revealed his agreement with Dieters after the first interrogations in the notorious Room 39 in Euterpestraat. It is unclear whether Verrips meant 1 or 2 April. As a result, Dieters was arrested the next day – 2 or 3 April? De Groot, who had agreed with Dieters that he would meet him in the centre of Apeldoorn after the conversation with Vosveld to hand over the blank identity card and accessories, saw with his own eyes how Dieters was led out of the police headquarters in handcuffs. And, as mentioned earlier, he fled without warning Jansen.
Stutje describes it differently.
Vosveld was also arrested in the early morning of 1 April. The interrogation had already begun in his own home. Transferred to Euterpestraat and interrogated in room 39, he lost control of his nerves and revealed his appointment with Dieters. (Stutje does not mention whether this was on 1 or 2 April).
The next day was the last chance to meet Dieters because the first meeting had been cancelled due to his arrest.
The SD sensed an opportunity. On Saturday 3 April, Vosveld was taken by car, under SD escort, to the Ruimzicht café in Apeldoorn, where Dieters arrived a little later. After half an hour of discussion, the unsuspecting Dieters asked Vosveld to travel to Enschede that same afternoon to arrange a new hiding place for de Groot. De Groot had also gone into hiding in Apeldoorn but could no longer stay there.
Dieters then left the café to go to an appointment with de Groot, not far from the hiding place where he was living. He had agreed to hand over the blank identity card that Vosveld had brought with him.
He set off on his bicycle, with the SD following him at a distance.
Dieters was very nervous before the meeting with Vosveld. The night before, he had told an acquaintance that someone had not shown up for the appointment they had made. He would have to leave Apeldoorn immediately if the follow-up appointment on 3 April did not go ahead.
Dieters had a habit of always going to the station in advance of his appointments with Vosveld to verify that he had arrived by train. This was also the case on this Saturday, when he went to the station in the afternoon to see if Vosveld had arrived on the last possible train of the day, at one o’clock in the afternoon. But, delayed by a meeting with acquaintances, he arrived at the station too late to see all the passengers disembark. Still unaware of anything, he went to Café Ruimzicht, where he met Vosveld, who gave no indication that anything was wrong.
After his conversation with Vosveld, Dieters cycled to the agreed meeting place with de Groot, who was not there. When he turned his bicycle around, he rode straight into the arms of four SD agents who had followed him. He was seized, handcuffed and taken away.
De Groot, who had arrived a little later than agreed, saw from a distance how Dieters was arrested and made his escape. He left Apeldoorn, failed to warn Jansen and left the resistance scene, only to reappear in May 1945.
After his arrest, Jan Dieters remained silent for three days during interrogation before revealing Lou Jansen’s address. On 6 April – Stutje mentions 5 April here and has Dieters remain silent for only two days – Lou Jansen and his family were subsequently arrested. Between 11 and 12 o’clock at night, the SD arrived at the home of Rita Versteeg in Eerbeek, where Jansen’s wife and five children had been staying for more than two months. (This is where the experts’ story does not add up. The two daughters were staying with an acquaintance of Mrs Versteeg in Dieren, but there was a courier in the house). Lou Jansen himself had been living at a different address for some time but had to find new accommodation because his protectors considered it too dangerous. That evening, he was with his wife and children at Mrs Versteeg’s villa. After the doorbell rang, she unsuspectingly opened the door, thinking it was Paul de Groot who had come to see Lou Jansen. Five men then stormed in, and the house appeared to be surrounded. Jansen tried to escape through a side window, but standing on the windowsill, he realised the hopelessness of his situation. After the war, his wife stated that one of the SD officers said to her husband: “Right, Paul, confess now. You are a Jew, you have outsmarted us three times, but this is the last time.”
Jansen responded with a denial. “I’m not Paul,” he said, showing his identity card, which was in the name of Jan Jansma. But the SD recognised him, and there was no point in continuing to deny that he was Lou Jansen.
At two o’clock in the morning, Lou Jansen, his wife and three boys, the courier and Mrs Versteeg were taken to the detention centre in Arnhem. From there, Jansen, his eldest son and Rita Versteeg left for Amsterdam that same night, where Jansen was imprisoned in the detention centre on Weteringschans. His eldest son was taken to the detention centre on Amstelveenseweg, where he is said to have spent some time in the same cell as Vosveld’s father.
Dieters and Jansen were unable to withstand the pressure of the interrogations to which they were continuously subjected by the SD and confessed their involvement in illegal activities, provided information about the party organisation, including the military groups, and revealed many names. SS-Sturmscharführer Wehner, who was in charge of combating the CPN, triumphantly concluded that “after three years of existence, the arrest of Jansen and Dieters has made it possible to explain the internal workings of this organisation without any doubt.”
Worn down by the intense interrogation and disheartened by the countless arrests, the two top leaders were prey to fear and demoralisation.
Jansen distanced himself from his old ideals, calling communism “a false and dangerous path,” and after eight days he signed his confession at the SD.
The literal text in Lou Jansen’s interrogation report read as follows:
“Ich bin der Ansicht dass alte und ehrlich gemeinte Idealen auf andere Weise verwirklicht werden müssten.
Auf dieser Erknntniss , dass der vom Kommunismus eingeschlagene Weg falsch und gefährlich ist, habe ich mich entschlossen, dieses umfassende Geständnis abzulegen in der Hoffnung, damit manches wieder gutmachen zu kônnen.
Aufgabe der deutschen Behörden ist es jetzt, meine Taten zu beurteilen und das Mass meiner Strafe fest zu setzen.
Ich bin mir bewusst, dass ich die Folgen meiner Handlungen zu tragen habe.
Meine Hoffnung ist jedoch, dass ich der Menschheit und Arbeiterschaft weiter dienen kann”.
Like Dieters, he felt used by de Groot because the latter “drove us to take increasingly harsh measures in our party work, while he himself withdrew more and more into the safety of the background”. Undoubtedly, Dieters’ statements about the course of the meeting on 3 April played a role in this.
On 24 August, during a special session of the German court, both men were sentenced to death and ordered to pay the costs of the trial for sabotage. In the indictment by the German Attorney General, the activities they were accused of in the preparation of the February strike were characterised as “high treason”. During the trial, Jansen and Dieters were only allowed to have contact with German lawyers. The SD used their statements with wording that had not been discussed with them by any Dutch person.
After lengthy deliberation, Seys-Inquart rejected a triple request for clemency on 6 October 1943. The head of the Gnadenabeilung (Pardon Department) suggested in a draft press release about the death sentences and executions of Jansen and Dieters that any publication should be postponed for the time being. He pointed out that this trial, which had been kept strictly secret, was the first in which no other Dutch nationals apart from the two defendants had been involved; not only the judges, but even the lawyers of the two defendants were Germans. Moreover, he considered it conceivable that the enemy could draw conclusions regarding the reconstruction of the party, especially since ‘the Jew de Groot’ had still not been caught.
On 9 October 1943, at half past five, both men were informed that their request for clemency had been rejected. Their last wish, to write a farewell letter and smoke, was granted.
At half past seven, they were killed by a German firing squad on the Waalsdorper plain.
After Jan Dieters’ arrest on 3 April, Van Vosveld was ordered on the spot in Apeldoorn to make a new appointment with Postma on 5 April. After agreeing to this, he was released, according to his own account, but with a reporting obligation. “The SDers,” he stated after the war, “left Apeldoorn without me.”
We do not know whether he considered fleeing. However, under pressure from threats by the SD to arrest his wife and three children if he did so, he did not.
On 5 April, however, Postma failed to keep the appointment. Vosveld then went into hiding on 6 or 7 April because, according to his statement after the war, he wanted to prove to people that he was not a traitor. He left with his family for a holiday home in Nunspeet. The SD responded by arresting his parents and a number of family members.
On 16 April, he was arrested again in Amsterdam’s Watergraafsmeer district, in a café wher , he and his family were allowed to stay the night.
He was interrogated in Euterpestraat, horribly abused according to his own statements, and was also confronted with Jansen and Dieters, who appeared to have offered no resistance to the SD. The SD also showed him his wife, children and other family members who had been arrested by the SD. When he was told that they would be sent to Buchenwald if he did not cooperate with the SD, he agreed to help with the arrest of de Groot, Brandenburg and van den Bosch.
He succeeded in doing so with van den Bosch, who was arrested on 23 April. On the orders of the SD chief, Vosveld’s youngest child was released. For the rest of his family, a greater concession was demanded of him, with the names of de Groot, Brandenburg and Vooren being mentioned. He then provided several addresses, including that of the military group of the CPN. Despite several attempts, he was unable to locate Brandenburg and Vooren.
However, the SD apparently considered this sufficient and in early May his family and the rest of his relatives were released.
Van den Bosch died a year later in Dachau. With the help of the SD, Vosveld moved to De Bilt, where he managed to hand over a number of people to the SD. Until he started running an illegal gin distillery – he distilled 6 to 7 litres of wine every week – the SD paid him a modest monthly amount to cover his living expenses.
However, his peace of mind was gone. He knew that his role was known in communist circles, he was permanently marked in the world of illegality, and the possibility of being liquidated haunted him. Jan Bonekamp and Hannie Schaft, among others, tried to kill him. Without success, and in the final year of the war, he left for Friesland with his wife and children under an alias.
There he came into contact with a number of people, including a minister who advised him to leave for England as soon as possible after the war to prevent him from being killed.
According to Communist Party records, 22 men were betrayed by Vosveld.
Lou de Jong mentions a figure of six in his book.
I myself received a few emails in response to Before I forget, which mentioned the names of people from the resistance who had been betrayed by Vosveld.
What happened after the war?
After the liberation, Vosveld managed to flee to England as a steward on board a ship, arriving there on 21 June 1945. Based on the reasons he gave for leaving the Netherlands, he was granted a residence permit. However, he was obliged to report regularly.
Because he was still afraid of being discovered, he changed his name to Nielsen in September 1945.
On 11 June 1946, a small advertisement appeared in the family announcements section of the newspaper De Waarheid, announcing that P. Vosveld and G. Vosveld-Kooiski, residing at Transvaalstraat 12-1, had been married for 35 years on 21 June. On behalf of their children and grandchildren.
The aforementioned data from the Population Register shows that these are the parents of Piet Vosveld, . The corruption of the name Kooistra is probably a typographical error. I assume that Piet himself was not present at the party.
On 2 August 1946, the newspaper De Waarheid reported that Vosveld had been caught by persistent investigators in England. There was no follow-up to that report.
In England, he started a small woodworking factory with someone else. In July 1949, he instructed his wife to sell their possessions in the Netherlands and come to England with their children. They arrived in England on a visitor’s visa.
The problem was that he did not have a passport and had to report regularly. According to his statements to the Disciplinary Council, he was blackmailed by the co-owner of the small company – a public limited company – that he had founded. In order to pay him, he had tampered with the accounts.
However, in January 1950, he was arrested in Bournemouth because he failed to report after moving house. The judge sentenced him to 31 days in prison (some sources mention 21 days) and deportation from England.
According to his own statement, he had been arrested for tampering with the company’s books.
When asked in the House of Commons about his extradition, the Minister of Justice stated that England was still holding him because he first had to stand trial for embezzlement. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for this.
Incidentally, after his liberation, he was listed as a political offender in the investigation register. According to his own statement, he had fled the Netherlands because he expected to be killed by the communists.
The newspapers did not report on the final date of his extradition to the Dutch judicial authorities. In any case, he was eventually put on a boat in Harwich by the British authorities. Upon arrival in Hoek van Holland, the police were waiting to arrest him.
It took until the end of October 1952 before he was brought before the court. The sentence was ten years, and he appealed.
In June 1953, he stood trial for the second time. This time, the case was not only heard in court, but also fought out in a war between De Waarheid and Het Vrije Volk.
The sentence was eight years, but that was not the end of the case. His lawyer appealed to the Supreme Court. In October 1953, the Supreme Court addressed the National Council of Illegality and asked this body to issue an opinion.
A committee chaired by W. van Norden studied the documents and spoke with Vosveld. The Council then informed the Supreme Court that they did not consider Vosveld to be an intentional traitor and that they were of the opinion that the appeal on grounds of force majeure should be upheld. They considered clemency with regard to the sentence to be justified.
With regard to the arrest of Dieters and the pressure exerted by the SD, the Council noted that Vosveld had acted no differently in this matter than many illegal workers who had been arrested under similar circumstances.
The Disciplinary Council considered that Vosveld’s betrayal of the agreement and his decision to accompany Dieters and Jansen to Apeldoorn were not reprehensible according to resistance standards. It also commented on Vosveld’s second defence, the attitude of Dieters and Jansen: “Furthermore, he was confronted by these two people, whom he rightly regarded as his leaders, who remarked that Vosveld should just say everything, because there was nothing else to be done. The account that Vosveld gave to the Disciplinary Council on this matter was presented in such a way that it was considered reliable.”
The Supreme Court decided to reduce the sentence to two years with deduction.
On 16 April 1954, Vosveld was a free man again, exactly eleven years after he had knelt before his German tormentors in room 39 at SD headquarters in Amsterdam.
That should have been the end of the story, were it not for the fact that the name P.O.C. Vosveld appeared in the newspapers several more times.
The first time was at the end of 1960, when a company was established in Roden. This location corresponds with the information about Piet Vosveld in the population register, which states that he moved to Roden in 1960.
In March 1971, a P.O.C. Vosveld was in the news again. This time in connection with the liquidation of SIF (Selected Int. Fund Holland). A large number of savers were duped and the losses ran into millions.
In early 1973, in a lawsuit filed against SIF, the public prosecutor named the now deceased P.O.C. Vosveld as the main culprit in the case. It seems plausible to me that the latter case also concerns the Piet Vosveld we know from his activities during the war, although no link was made with the events of that period.
In any case, he was a controversial figure until the end of his life.
And, to my surprise, even after that. In 2019, an email arrived from J.S. (initials only for privacy reasons) from New Zealand.
J.S. was the son of a daughter of Vosveld, who had emigrated to New Zealand in the mid-1960s. Vosveld was therefore his grandfather.
I reproduce the email in full below.
“I was in total shock when I read your book about his history.
He passed away in either late 1971 or early 1972. Not 1973.
He was visiting us in NZ after my youngest sister was born in April 1971.
He had a heart attack and died in NZ.
I understand you might have a hatred for him because of what happened as I have said.
I knew nothing of his past; he was a good grandfather to me. Although I was only 9 or 10 at the time of his death.”
To discover a piece of your grandfather’s past like that. I did feel a little sorry for him. We exchanged one or two more emails after this first one. He wanted to send a few more photos, but I don’t think his mother really wanted him to. When asked, she could remember very little about the war. As she was the youngest daughter, born in 1942, that seems quite possible to me.
The Vosveld case is described in detail (only in Dutch) on the website of dewereldvangajes.