• The Women's March 1945

Date of birth:

March 29th, 1862 (Grijpskerk, the Netherlands)

Date of death:

November 2nd, 1945 (Groningen, the Netherlands)

Nationality:

Dutch

In Groningen, she joined the communist-oriented Tempo youth group. They organized bike rides, parties, lectures, and produced and distributed the national magazine De Stormvogel (The Storm Bird).
At the beginning of the war, the CPN (Communist Party) asked her to become active in the resistance. She hesitated but agreed. "Walking through Herestraat in Groningen, I felt happy. Passing by German soldiers, I thought: ‘You don't know this, but I'm a tiny cog in a global movement that fights National Socialism and will one day defeat it,’” she later said in an interview.
She typed copy for the illegal communist monthly magazine "Het Noorderlicht," which published approximately 600 copies in the city of Groningen and the surrounding area.
After the February Strike (1941) in Amsterdam, communists were also arrested in Groningen. On March 27 of that year, Geertje suffered the same fate. She was taken to the Scholtenhuis in Groningen, where the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) brutally interrogated detainees. She was then transported to the Oranjehotel in Scheveningen and, via Schoorl, ended up in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
When she was released after a year – in October 1942 – starving and emaciated, she rejoined the resistance. She arranged, among other things, hiding places and food coupons. Until she was arrested again and imprisoned in Groningen ends up there. The 26-year-old woman is then taken to Camp Westerbork and forced to participate in the nighttime Women's March in April. She wears number 100 on her sleeve.

The Women's March 1945.
A total of 116 women are imprisoned in Camp Westerbork, originating from active resistance families from central and northeastern Netherlands. Assembled in Westerbork between 21 March and 6 April 1945 from 4 Sicherheitsdienst (SD) prisons in the country:
• Willem III Barracks in Apeldoorn – approximately 75 women come from here from Putten, Barneveld, Ermelo, Ede, Veenendaal, Utrecht
• House of Detention in Groningen – approximately 20 women, 16 of whom from Groningen or the surrounding area
• House of Detention in Zwolle – 12 women from Zwolle, 3 from Kampen and 2 women from Hellendoorn and Beerzerveld
• De Kruisberg in Doetinchem – most women from the Willem III barracks in Apeldoorn were held here for a few more days, together with a few prisoners from Zutphen, Twello, Lutten aan de Dedemsvaart.
The women have all ranks and ages, ranging from 17 to 63 years. Among them pregnant girls, a baroness, strict reformed people next to a reviled communist, and a fortune teller.
Geertje was one of them.

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• - DOORN, I. VAN & SENNEMA, H., Vrouwenmars 1945, Stichting Vrouwenmars 1945, 2025.
  - https://www.openarchieven.nl/gra:b25e69bc-57c5-657a-5b1a-3cf37c607960
  - https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/nieuws/getuigenverhalen-offline
  - https://www.vrouwenmars1945.nl/geertje-van-der-molen-no-100/