The Secret Diary of Arnold Douwes

Book excerpt: A rare diary by the leader of an underground rescue network during the Holocaust that’s “a crucial source for the study of the Dutch resistance” (Ido de Haan, coeditor of Securing Europe After Napoleon). In the Netherlands, the myth that resistance to Nazi occupation was high among all sectors of the population has retained a strong hold, and yet many Dutch Jews fell victim to deportation and annihilation in the camps of Eastern Europe. How could a country that prided itself on its tolerance, adherence to legal norms, and democratic government have been the site of such an enormous tragedy? Even while Nazi arrests of Jews were taking place, Arnold Douwes, a gardener and restless adventurer, headed a clandestine network of resistance and rescue. Douwes had spent time in the United States and France and was arrested several times by the police after his return to the Netherlands in 1940. Keenly aware that he was doing something important, he started a diary in the summer of 1943. He hid some thirty-five small notebooks in jam jars at safe houses in the vicinity of his base in Nieuwlande (Drenthe). After the war, he dug the notebooks up and transcribed them, adding several postwar sections with scrupulous notations. Bob Moore has translated Douwes’s diary into English for the first time, and he and coeditor Johannes Houwink ten Cate have added a historical and contextual introduction, annotations, and a glossary for readers who may not be familiar with Dutch technical terms or places. Organized chronologically, and remaining largely as Douwes originally wrote it, the diary sheds light on the successes—and failures—of this important Dutch rescue network.