Date of birth:

January 25th, 1899 (Zutphen, the Netherlands)

Date of death:

August 11th, 1944 (Camp Vught, the Netherlands)

Nationality:

Dutch (1815-present, Kingdom)

Joop Westerweel was a Dutch teacher who was designated as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Between 1927 and 1932 he stayed in Amsterdam. He devorced his wife in 1929, with whom he was married in 1920.
In 1942, Joop Westerweel joined forces with a group of young Zionists and formed an underground movement with Joachim ("Schuschu") Simon. Their objective was to hide young people from the Nazi occupier so they were not deported.
After hiding the first 60 people, they started to organize an escape route through Belgium and France to Switzerland and Spain. The first escapes were done in December 1942 and January 1943. Schuschu was arrested during one of the trips, but managed to inform his fellow workers from out of prison, that he was captured. After this he committed suicide. After this loss, Joop Westerweel increased his organisation to 20 people. He attended several crossings by himself. In March 1944 he was caught and taken to the concentration camp at Vught, where he was tortured. He never gave anything away to his torturers. On August 11th 1944 he was executed.
His group finally managed to smuggle nearly 200 Jews out of occupied countries.

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• Photo 1: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  
• - Yad Vashem