Memorial Plates Spaarndammerbuurt Martin Vlaarkade

In Amsterdam, under the motto "Give Streets a Face", streets are provided with panels with the portrait of the namesake plus a short life course. In this way they want to give streets more personality. The initiator is Paul Fennis.

Ground worker Martinus Vlaar (Sloten, March 13, 1904 - Amsterdam, February 11, 1975) joined the Dutch communists in the 1930s. In that capacity he helped illegally organize the February strike in the Second World War. After that strike, supporters of the Nazi regime organized a manhunt and also managed to find Vlaar and locked him up in the House of Detention on the Weteringschans, the Amstelveenseweg and the Oranjehotel in Scheveningen. In a 10-day criminal case in The Hague in September 1941 against 22 resistance fighters in connection with the February strike, he was given a 12-year prison sentence, which he had to serve in Germany. In 1945 he was liberated by American troops.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar + Rick Hoogervorst
• Photos: Rick Hoogervorst