Dutch Helper List

In the following sub-pages, I have posted an index to Dutch Helpers of Allied airmen during World War II from the records of The National Archives of the United Kingdom.  Researcher John Howes photographed them and was kind enough to provide me with a copy on a DVD.  There is a total of 266 pages with upwards of 8000 names.

Researchers also should take note of the database of Righteous Among Nations Honored by Yad Vashem for The Netherlands at 
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/pdf/virtial_wall/netherlands.pdf

In searching for a name, there are several things to keep in mind:

1. Not all helpers of Allied airmen will be listed.  There are several reasons for this: (a) The helper may have died and there was no one left who could describe what he or she did.  (b) The helper may have been too modest to speak about what he or she did or the person’s experiences may have been too painful to talk about.  (c) The helper may have been an active Resistance member but involved in other types of Resistance work, with aid to airmen being only incidental.  (d) Allied Military Intelligence tried to let it be known that they wanted to know what each helper did and who they helped, even advertising in newspapers.   The helper may not have heard about it.  (e)  It may have been unclear which office of Allied Military Intelligence was in charge of that helper’s records or, for that matter, what the helper’s nationality was.  For example, one of Tom Applewhite’s helpers was born in Switzerland, living in France, but a Belgian citizen.  Conceivably, someone who was Dutch might turn up in the Belgian helper files.

2. The names are listed alphabetically by the main part of the name.  For example, “van Aalst” is listed according to where “Aalst” appears, not “van Aalst,” but the “van” still appears in front of the “Aalst.”  This is precisely the reverse of the way Dutch helper files are organized at the National Archives II in College Park, Maryland, with all “v’s” lumped together.   This system of listing names applies also to “de” as in the case of “de Beer,” etc.

3. The alphabetical listing has some errors. For example, note how page B18 ends with BORGH and page B19 begins with BORCH.  In at least one instance, a name (KIRK) was tacked on, out of order, at the end of the names starting with that same letter, i.e., following KWINT.  In another instance, the name SILKENS has a page to itself, between SIDERIUS and SIEBELINK on the list.   Also note that the consecutive letters “IJ” are treated as a “Y” for purposes of alphabetization. On page headings I have included the “Y” spelling in parentheses in order to make clear the alphabetical range of the names.   See for example, pages B33 and B34 in the case of names like BIJL.  In any event, if you don’t find a name where you expect to find it alphabetically, look at the entire list of names beginning with the same first letter.

4. A helper may no longer be living in the town where he or she was active.  If you are looking for a helper you know was active in a particular town during the war but don’t find anyone by that name and that town, look for the person in a different town.  The records of Allied Military Intelligence, in listing a helper’s address, give the contact address where he or she was after the Liberation.

5. Watch out for nicknames, middle names, and noms de guerre.  A helper may have been known by his or her nickname, middle name, or nom de guerre but the helper list may use the person’s formal given name.

It is immediately obvious that the most common award grade was a 5 or 6.  (NIL appears to refer to a lack of information or too little activity to warrant an award.)  Much rarer were Grades 4 or higher.  Out of the roughly 8000 awards, approximately 185 or 2.3% were Grade 4.  Grade 3 had 61 or 0.7%.  Grade 2 was 16, or 0.2%.  The top award, Grade 1, had seven recipients, or 0.09%.  Note that the award reflected aid to Allied military personnel and did not take into account other Resistance activities.  Note also the high mortality rate: 15% of the Grade 4 awards were posthumous.

It might be of interest to see who the recipients were of the top awards.  For Grades 1, 2, and 3 the recipients were as follows:

Grade 1

• Johanna Maria Folmer, Zeist
• Peter Jan v.d.  Hurk, Meppel
• Dick Kragt, c/o G.S.I.(X), B.A.O.R.
• Joseph Piller, Laren
• Henri Tummers, Echt
• Dirk Wildeboer, Ede
• Adriaan L. van Wylen, Sprang-Capelle

In September, 2012, I plan another trip to National Archives II. As a test, I will compare some pages from the British index to the actual helper files that NAII has on hand to see how closely they match.

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