Date of birth:

October 5th, 1921 (Papendrecht, the Netherlands)

Date of death:

March 8th, 1945 (Leusden, The Netherlands)

Nationality:

Dutch

Gerrit van Dalen, born in Papendrecht on October 5, 1921 worked at the Distribution Office in Alblasserdam during the occupation years. At the end of March 1944 it was betrayed to the NSB mayor of Alblasserdam that the head of the service, Halbe Ruiter, and some of his officials were providing food coupons to people in hiding and the Illegality. Ruiter was captured and later found death in Germany. The Papendrechters Gerrit van Dalen and Marinus Teunis Veth went into hiding and then devoted themselves entirely to the Resistance.

The SD could not find Gerrit and took his father hostage for several weeks in Camp Vught. Gerrit was mainly active on the South Holland Islands under the pseudonyms "Leen van Beek", "Leen van de Eilanden" and "Leen van Trouw" and distributed, among other things, the illegal newspaper Trouw. On February 12, 1945, he was captured by the SD in Rotterdam. He then carried a Personal Identification Card in the name of Johan van Kersbergen and was also imprisoned under that name in Camp Amersfoort. The Germans never found out his real name.

After the attack on SS leader Rauter, Gerrit van Dalen, then only 23 years old, was one of a total of 263 prisoners executed in reprisal. On March 8, 1945, he died together with 48 other prisoners before the firing squad at the shooting range of Camp Amersfoort.

In Papendrecht he has been remembered since 1950 with a street named after him, and on March 8, 2020, exactly 75 years after his death, a plaque on his former residence was unveiled.

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• Photo: https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/personen/30965/gerrit-van-dalen#gallery-contribution-954276
  
• - WIJNGAARDEN, P. VAN, Papendrecht tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog, WW2Books, Papendrecht, 2020.
  - Plaque on former residence.
  Overlijdensakte 69/1945 gemeente Leusden.