Information Panel Resistance Fighter Victor Henri Rutgers

INFORMATION PANEL RESISTANCE FIGHTER
For:
Victor Henri Rutgers

Victor Henri Rutgers had an impressive track record. After he had been Minister of Education, Arts and Sciences in the first Colijn cabinet (1924-1925), he became a professor of Roman law and criminal law at the VU.
Rutgers condemned the occupation on principle and legal grounds. But even worse, he once said, he thought "they are destroying our culture."
Rutgers led the School Resistance. In the spring of 1941, when the Germans ordered that teachers no longer be appointed by the school boards but by the department, he advised them on how to avoid this arrangement. Rutgers also headed the underground ARP in the second half of 1942, when party leader Jan Schouten was imprisoned. Rutgers regularly wrote articles for the illegal newspaper Trouw.
The need grew to inform the government in exile; a task entrusted to Rutgers. The 66-year-old professor had to come to England.

On Wednesday, April 26, 1944, at six o'clock in the evening, Rutgers went to the port of Dordrecht. At Hellevoetsluis, they were fired upon by light-track ammunition, which Rutgers elatedly called "beautiful fireworks". Forty miles off the coast, fate struck: the engine broke down. For two and a half days the wooden sloop floated out of control at sea. Due to the tidal current, the boat floated back to the Zeeland coast where it was intercepted by three German patrol ships on Saturday afternoon, April 29.
The Dutch Navy sentenced Rutgers to two years of disciplinary punishment. He was taken to Bochum prison where he died on February 5, 1945.

The information panels in the Resistance Fighters District in Gouda are memories of important Resistance Fighters who helped many Dutch people during World War II.
To these Resistance Fighters, 16 streets are named to in Gouda.
On 10 april 2014, they finally got a face. Memory boards with photographs and information about these Resistance Fighters were revealed.
These are the streets:

Walraven van Halllaan
Van Roijenstraat
Rutgersstraat
Johannes Poststraat
Helena Rietbergstraat
Dobbestraat
Dercksenstraat
Brandsmastraat
Boelhouwerstraat
Bleysstraat
Willem Idenburgpad
Nieuwenhuisenpad
De Rijkestraat
Teldersstraat
Wiarda Beckmanhof
De Kortestraat.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar
• Photos: Arie van Wijngaarden