Joop Westerweel Explained

Joop Westerweel (25 January 1899, Zutphen – 11 August 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 10 March 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.

Further reading

• Book: Schippers . Hans . Joop Westerweel and the Left-Wing Radical Milieu in the 1920s and 1930s . 33–59 . 10.1515/9783110582703 . Westerweel Group: Non-Conformist Resistance Against Nazi Germany: A Joint Rescue Effort of Dutch Idealists and Dutch-German Zionists . 2019 . 978-3-11-058270-3 . De Gruyter . 166468317 . mdy-all .

External links

• Teachers Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust. Yad Vashem
• ONA SIMAITE, JOOP WESTERWEEL, IRENA SENDLEROWA. USHMM

Notes and References

1. Book: Presser, Jacques . Jacques Presser

   . Jacques Presser. Ashes in the Wind: The Destruction of Dutch Jewry. 1998. Wayne State University Press. 978-0-8143-2036-5. 283.

2. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/righteous-teachers/westerweel.asp?WT.mc_id=wiki Johan (Joop) Westerweel | "Their Fate Will Be My Fate Too…" Teachers Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust
3. https://books.google.com/books?id=EpOJ3gXY3lwC&pg=PA158 Warren I. Cohen: Profiles in Humanity: The Battle for Peace, Freedom, Equality, and Human Rights ; Chapter 10; page 158