When Member of Parliament Eric van der Burg joined Zomergasten as a guest last night, the theme of the evening was: taking responsibility and standing up for people who cannot do so themselves. He showed a fragment from the documentary about Truus Wijsmuller, an Alkmaar resistance hero who saved tens of thousands of children.
According to Van der Burg, the story about Wijsmuller is underexposed and few people really know it well. The most famous example is Oskar Schindler, who saved many Jews during the war. The film Schindler’s List became, partly thanks to director Spielberg, a real blockbusterThis gave him worldwide fame, which resistance hero and activist Truus Wijsmuller has not yet acquired.
More name recognition for Truus
The Tante Truus foundation is working hard on that name recognition. The Alkmaar foundation was established in 2020, after the story about Truus appeared in the magazine of the Historical Society of Alkmaar in 2015. That is when interest arose for more recognition and education about the resistance hero.
Leen Spaans is chair of the Tante Truus foundation and also watched the interview with the VVD MP last night. The foundation immediately contacted Van der Burg after the broadcast. “A collaboration would be nice. We would like to show him everything here, so that he knows that we are working hard to tell Truus’ story.”
Ten thousand children saved
And that story is special. The Alkmaar woman negotiated with the German officer Adolf Eichmann before the war broke out in the Netherlands. In this way, 600 children between the ages of 2 and 16 could be put on a so-called children’s transport to England.
It didn’t stop there. During the famine of 1945, Truus secretly delivered food in the Apollobuurt in Amsterdam. After the war, she worked hard as an activist for the trans community and became a councillor in the municipality of Amsterdam. The resistance hero has been honoured for her good deeds and work for the municipality with a statue on the Bachplein.
Pop-up museum in Alkmaar
The foundation has a pop-up museum developed, which has already been set up in several places in the Alkmaar region. In addition, the foundation regularly gives lectures. Recently there were three ballet performances about the life of Truus. “We would also like to re-release the biography of Truus, Geen tijd voor tranen (published in 1961, ed.). But for that we first have to wait until the book is free of copyrights,” says Spaans. The passing on of Truus’ story is actually only just getting started, concludes the foundation chairman.
Tonight the documentary De kinderen van Truus will be shown on NPO Extra, a film for which makers Jessica van Tijn and Pamela Sturhoofd spent years researching.
Watch the video about Truus Wijsmuller’s pop-up museum in Alkmaar here.
