Willem Arondeus was a Dutch resistance fighter who gave his life trying to protect his Jewish countrymen from the Nazis.
Born in Amsterdam in 1895, Willem was one of six children. From a young age, he was a talented artist and his parents encouraged his creativity, until he came out as homosexual at age 17.
In a time when nearly all gay people were in the closet, Willem’s parents could not accept his choice to live openly. Their rejection led Willem to run away from home.
On his own, Willem took odd jobs and eventually became a successful visual artist and writer. He was commissioned to paint a mural for Rotterdam’s town hall, in a style that combined modern abstract painting with a traditional Dutch motif. Willem was a well-respected author who published a popular biography of Dutch painter and political activist Matthijs Maris.
In 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands. Willem immediately joined the resistance movement, and urged his fellow artists to fight against the Nazi occupation. WIllem published illegal anti-Nazi pamphlets calling for mass resistance against the Germans.
Willem was especially committed to saving Amsterdam’s Jewish community. Bringing in others to the cause, Willem arranged for Dutch Jews to be hidden in people’s homes. He used his artistic skills to create false identity papers.
In 1943, Willem hatched a brazen plan. Dressed as a German Army captain, and with 15 men behind him, Willem boldly marched into the Public Record Office, where lists identifying people as Jews were kept. Willem drugged the guards and planted a firebomb. The resulting blaze destroyed tens of thousands of documents, and delayed or prevented many Jews from being identified by the Nazis.
Unfortunately, Willem was captured by the Germans and sentenced to death. Willem’s last words before being executed in July, 1943 were, “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.”
In 1986 Yad Vashem recognized Arondeus as Righteous Among the Nations.
Because of his sexual orientation, Willem’s story was omitted from Dutch history books. Only in the last 20 years has his courage become widely known.i have never heard of this!
gay hero 💖💖💖
“Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.”
Damn. Just.
Damn.
wish pokemon was real so i could move to the country and farm mareep in peace
They’re called… sheep…
never speak to me again
find a robot and pull an inception with them. there will be plenty of mareep when robots sleep
please god!!! please!!! watch phineas and ferb!!! the last two seasons are a shitpost!!! pl ease!!!
@official-deutschtuerke i cant @ your sideblog for some reason but you got to see this
@sunbuurst because I know you love pnf
So I wasn’t sure if I should post this or not. I’m probably gonna get rambly, so excuse me for that.
I generally want my blog to be an overall positive place as much as possible, for other people’s sake, and my own. I like making people happy, and things I don’t like I ignore but try not to bring up. But… I realized how upset I was, and how I was trying to ignore it and push it aside so I wouldn’t cause more drama. And I’m not okay with that. I don’t want to hurt other people but I really don’t want to hurt either.
It’s pretty obvious what this is about. I simplified things but its not exactly subtle. I mostly drew it to vent, and I honestly don’t want to call people out.
But… this isn’t really about accusing anyone of anything. I don’t think anyone who posted really meant any harm by it, and some probably felt bad about my initial post which fueled their original reply.So the take away from this I’d like people to have is basically… don’t assume negative implications about positive things, like gushing about things people like. And if you see something on your dash you don’t like, if it’s something harmless (like posting about liking something, not something racist/sexist/homophobic/etc) just ignore or block it. If you don’t want to engage in it, just… don’t engage.
Because even if you see it on your dash, it’s posted on their blog, and they see every single negative thing that gets posted, and even with a lot of positive posts it can be pretty overwhelming. Esp[ecially if it gets unexpectedly popular for some unknowable reason.
It’s totally okay to hate a thing, or talk about hating a thing! But please don’t do it on someone else’s post about liking it. Maybe if you want to have a discussion about it? But even then try to be considerate about what you’re putting out there.
(This is something that has bothered me before in smaller samples, like people posting on my art that they don’t like a particular ship or something, which always bothered me a little. I mean, if I drew it, I probably like it. It’s really not the place to talk about how much you don’t like it. But the latest post of mine has gotten so much negativity it’s honestly been kind of overwhelming.)
To clarify, I’m not angry at anyone who did this. I just was hurt by it to the point I wished I had never posted it, and I’m really hoping that this might stop others from being hurt in the future.
Please please do not take this personally if you’ve done it before! Just… try not to do it agian. :x
