Collaboration and resistance

In Rotterdam several resistance groups were active as part of the Landelijke Knokploegen (LKP, the National Assault Groups). The LKP had been established as a support of the National Organisation for Help to Persons in Hiding in 1943. By means of hold ups on rationing offices and on the Municipal Registers, they provided for ration cards and ID’s. They also liberated members of the resistance from prisons and they liquidated traitors. Besides, they blew up bridges and railroad tracks to frustrate the Germans as much as possible. In Rotterdam, the sabotage of the harbour was evidently of great importance. The Germans tried to block the strategically important harbour of Rotterdam and De Nieuwe Waterweg (New Waterway) by sinking ships. To prevent a blockade the assault groups tried as much as possible to blow up the ships which were destined for this purpose. Allied bombings on these ships which brought about a lot of risks for people living in the neighbourhood, were thus prevented.

In the beginning of 1945 the Germans took several retaliation measures, which horrified the population. During the period after Crazy Tuesday (“Dolle Dinsdag”, 5th September 1944) more than a hundred people were executed by firing-squad for acts of resistance. After some 40 men had been shot on the Hofplein and the Pleinweg on 12th March 1945, another twenty men were brought before a firing-squad at the Oostzeedijk near the Hoflaan at eight o’clock in the morning on 3rd April. It was a retaliation for the liquidation of a policeman from Rotterdam, who was also a member of the SS, by the LKP-Rotterdam (Assault Squads).