Gerrit van der Veen

He was a member of the Dutch underground, which resisted the German occupation of Amsterdam during World War II.

Together with the musician Jan van Gilse and the (openly homosexual) artist, art historian, and critic Willem Arondeus, van der Veen established the underground organization De Vrije Kunstenaar (The Free Artist).

Van der Veen and the other artists published a newsletter calling for resistance against the occupation.

When the Germans introduced identity documents (Persoonsbewijzen) that distinguished between Jews and non-Jews, van der Veen, Arondeus and the printer Frans Duwaer [nl] produced some 80,000 false identity papers.

On 9 March 2002, van der Veen was made Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.