Box with photos, papers of WWII resistance fighter discovered in Royal Library depot
Warheouse staff at the Royal Library in The Hague discovered a box containing remarkable material from the Second World War in its depot, the library announced on Monday, WWII Remembrance Day. The box contains letters, photos, and forgery templates of a prominent resistance fighter against Nazi Germany.
Collection specialist Huibert Crijns examined the box and came across many remarkable artifacts, including a photo album documenting war damage in various Dutch cities, personal letters, and templates for forging identity cards, driver’s licenses, weapons permits, and permits to be allowed on the street at night.
Crijns discovered that the box belonged to Wim Oosenbrug, a resistance fighter for the National Organization for Assistance to People in Hiding (LO). He headed the LO’s Falsification Center during the Second World War.
“The LO was one of the largest and most important resistance organizations during the Second World War. It considered it its core task to offer a safe hiding place to people who had to flee from the Germans,” Crijns said. “By the end of the war, the LO was a well-organized organization with a nationwide network.”
Oosenbrug’s son worked at the Royal Library when his father passed away. He donated several boxes containing his father’s papers to various organizations, but this one disappeared into the library’s depot without notice. “It was forgotten there until warehouse staff came across it during preparations for the move. This just goes to show how easily history can be lost.”
The Royal Library is mainly a place for books and magazines, so it is working with the Oosenbrug family to determine the proper destination for the box’s contents. “It would be better to house the contents of the box at a specialist institution with an archival function, such as the NIOD or one of the war museums, like the Oranjehotel in The Hague, where Wim Oosenbrug himself was imprisoned,” Crijns said.
