Arondeus, Willem Johan Cornelis

Date of birth:: August 22nd, 1894 (Naarden/North Holland, the Netherlands)
Date of death:: July 1st, 1943 (Overveen/North Holland, the Netherlands)
Buried on:: Dutch Honorary Cemetery Bloemendaal
Plot: 18.
Nationality:: Dutch

Biography

Willem Johan Cornelis Arondeus was a Dutch visual artist, author (writer/illustrator/designer/lithographer/painter) and resistance fighter during the Second World War who was openly gay. He lived in Amsterdam and was born on 22 August 1894, the son of merchant Hendrik Cornelis Arondeus and Catharina Wilhelmina de Vries. Willem Arondeus was unmarried.

Arondeus was a member of the resistance group “de Raad van Verzet” (the Council of Resistance). Together with Frans Duwaer, Willem Sandberg and Gerrit van der Veen, he forged identity cards and wrote the so-called “Brandarisbrieven” (Brandaris letters), in which he denounced the cultural collaboration with the Germans by Dutch artists and called for resistance against the occupiers and the Cultuurkamer (Culture Chamber).

The Germans soon began comparing the documents forged by Arondeus and others with the data in the various population registers, which brought the forgeries to light. To stop the Germans from doing this and also to prevent them from easily tracking down Jewish residents, Arondeus took part in the bomb attack on the population register on Plantage Middenlaan in Amsterdam on 27 March 1943. Within a week of the attack, Arondeus and all the other members of the group were arrested. He was imprisoned in the House of Detention on Weteringschans. After a trial, he was executed on 1 July 1943. In 1945, after the liberation, Arondeus was posthumously awarded a medal by the Dutch government. He was reburied at the Bloemendaal Cemetery of Honour.

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