A biography has been published about Arnold Douwes, also known as the Savior of the Jews of Nieuwlande. With the title Resilient, gWritten by Michiel van Diggelen and Richard Tanke. The book was presented last week in the Resistance Museum in Amsterdam.
“Douwes has been resilient throughout his life. He set boundaries for himself and also for others. He was someone who could overcome problems,” says Michiel van Diggelen in the Radio Drenthe program Cassata. “Douwes did not allow himself to be called in by others. And we need those kinds of people today.”
The idea for the book came from Richard Tanke, but he died last year after an illness. “Richard loved Douwes,” says Van Diggelen, “and he thought the book should be published. We started the research together, but in the end I wrote it.”
Much has already been written about Arnold Douwes and a diary of his has also been published, but Van Diggelen still thought there should be a biography. “It wasn’t there yet. His whole life story hadn’t been told yet.” Van Diggelen and Tanke have found many new sources during their research. “We looked at family archives, letters from his mother and letters from Douwes himself to his mother when he lived in America. We found a diary in Boskoop where he attended horticultural school at the age of thirty.”
According to Van Diggelen it is a total biography. “We try to capture his whole life and also understand his personality. And then you need an introduction to his background and his family.” Douwes was someone who did what he had on his mind, says Van Diggelen. “He did what he thought was important at that moment. And he could not stand injustice and injustice.” Van Diggelen gives an example from the period when Douwes was in America just before the war.
“He was sitting in a restaurant and everyone first got a glass of water, that’s normal there. But across from him was a man who didn’t get water because he had a dark skin color. So Douwes asked why that man didn’t get water and referred to the American Constitution, which states that everyone is equal before the law. The owner called the police and Douwes was put in jail. Ultimately he was deported from America because they thought Douwes was a communist.”
Douwes met resistance member Johannes Post in Nieuwlande during the war. According to Van Diggelen, if that had not happened, little would have come of the entire network in which they received people in hiding. “Arnold Douwes was an intuitive person who made instant decisions, but could not structure things. And Johannes Post was good at that.”
“He taught Arnold how to do that. He introduced him to the work for people in hiding. And Douwes then expanded that network. They took Jews from Amsterdam by train themselves. When he arrived at the station in Hoogeveen with two little girls, he just smelled that something was wrong. And then he escaped over the railway and over a hedge. One of those girls emigrated to Israel. And he said about him: ‘He has done for us what only parents or brothers or sisters can do. do someone’.”
Watch the conversation that presenter Margriet Benak had with Michiel van Diggelen below:
