1. Willem Johan Cornelis Arondeus was a Dutch artist and author who joined the Dutch anti-Nazi resistance movement during World War II.
13 Facts About Willem Arondeus
1. 2.
Willem Arondeus participated in the bombing of the Amsterdam public records office to hinder the Nazi German effort to identify Dutch Jews and others wanted by the Gestapo.
3.
Willem Johan Cornelis Arondeus was born in Naarden, as the youngest son of an Amsterdam fuel trader.
4.
Willem Arondeus's parents were Hendrik Cornelis Arondeus and Catharina Wilhelmina de Vries.
5.
Willem Arondeus started working as an illustrator, designer of posters and tapestries and a painter.
6.
Willem Arondeus admired the older Dutch designer Richard Roland Holst, as can be seen in his work.
7.
Willem Arondeus did not attain much fame and lived in impoverished circumstances.
8.
At that date Willem Arondeus was already involved with the Dutch resistance movement.
9.
However, due to an unknown betrayer, Willem Arondeus was arrested on 1 April 1943.
10.
Willem Arondeus refused to give up the rest of his team but his notebook was found, and as a result, a majority of the group were arrested.
11.
On 18 June 1943, Willem Arondeus was tried and sentenced to death, along with 13 other men who participated.
12.
In 1945, after the liberation of the Netherlands, Willem Arondeus's family was awarded a posthumous medal by the Dutch government in his honour.
13.
In National Geographic's biographical World War II drama miniseries A Small Light, Willem Arondeus is played by Sean Hart.