Although books on saving Jews during World War II have been coming out in the form of fiction and personal and official testimony since 1945, an 18-year-old biography of a little-known but highly influential Resistance fighter in The Netherlands, Walraven Van Hall, is worth noticing for its historical significance and relevance today in a world of growing anti-Semitism.
The biography, Under Nazi Noses, was written by Dutch historian Erik Schapp, a journalist and political scientist, and has just been translated into English for the first time by East Hampton resident, John Tepper Martin, a U.S. economist and relative, on his mother’s side, of Van Hall.
Despite its easy chronological structure and clear narrative style however, the biography is filled with almost overwhelming family details - including photos, with names, and monetary facts, and figures that will likely cause a general reader to glaze over. But the larger Resistance theme comes through -- an account of the meticulous, exhausting business of organizing, managing, and protecting opposition Dutch to the Nazi invasion of The Netherlands in 1940. It would not be until May 5, 1945 that the war would be officially over in the northern regions of The Netherlands. Though three months earlier, along with seven others, Van Hall, who had been betrayed, was executed. He was 39.
Some people may not know that The Netherlands sustained the highest number of Jewish victims in Western Europe – 3/4ths of whom were murdered, 85% of whom had been living in The Netherlands for centuries and were an integral part of the development and prosperity of the country. But who organized and sustained the opposition? Specifically, who paid for it and supported the families of workers and professionals who were fired or immediately sent to concentration camps? And how was the Resistance carried out, under Nazi noses?
Deceiving Nazis may be an affair of the heart, in spine-chilling movies about the underground, but it succeeds only when it is led by a cool head that can provide exceptional administrative skills, resources, courage, and the ability to inspire and unify friends, colleagues, even competitors. Such was Van Hall. By June 1943, he was, as Schapp says, “the Banker of the Resistance,” arranging hiding places, talking to everyone to enlist all manner of support, and keeping lines open with Queen Wilhelmina in London who maintained The Netherlands Government in exile.
The title of the book, Under Nazi Noses reflects what has been called ”the biggest bank fraud in Dutch history” – and maybe the greatest such heist ever in world history, as Schapp suggests. It was a sophisticated scheme organized by Van Hall, his brother, bankers, and close associates that turned on the substitution of forged Dutch State Bank treasury notes for real ones. The real money then went to funding Nazi victims and to provide for post-war rehabilitation activities. In toto, as Tepper Martin estimates, Van Hall’s National Support Fund raised what today would be over one billion dollars.
A year after the war ended, Walraven Van Hall was posthumously awarded the Resistance Cross of The Netherlands, one of only 94 fighters so honored. In 1953 President Eisenhower bestowed on him The Medal of Freedom and in 1973 Israel put his name on the Yad Vashem Righteous Among Nations Wall. Schapp calls him “The Prime Minister of the Resistance.”
