It is likely that Willem Arondeus would have been surprised by his own acts of bravery, had he been told about them in 1940, the year that the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Three years later – after joining the Dutch anti-Nazi resistance movement, saving hundreds of Jewish lives by doctoring identity cards and blowing up Amsterdam’s Central Records Office – he would be killed by a firing squad.
He had been defiant during his trial, mocking the judges and taking full responsibility for the raid in an effort to save his co-conspirators from also receiving the death sentence. An openly gay man, who had been thrown out of home aged 17 for his sexuality, his final words were, “Tell the world that homosexuals are not cowards”.
