Herman Salomonson

Herman Salomonson, also known as Melis Stoke, (March 24, 1892, in Amsterdam – October 7, 1942, in Mauthausen concentration camp) was a Dutch journalist, writer, and poet of Jewish heritage.

[2][3] The couple had two children: son Herman Arnold Nicolaas “Hans” (1922–1945) and daughter Nannette “Netje” (born 1925).

He directed the local branch of the Dutch-Indian press office Aneta (Algemeen Nieuws-en Telegraaf-Agentschap).

[1] When the Netherlands mobilized on September 1, 1939, at the beginning of the Second World War, Salomonson was called up a “reserve captain for special services” in the Vrijwillig Landstormkorps Luchtafweerdienst (Voluntary Army Air Defense Corps).

Reedijk made a short documentary about Dutch air defense under his name; Melis Stoke wrote the script.

In his history of the Netherlands during WWII (Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog) Loe de Jong wrote that on May 15, 1940, the cultural attaché of the German embassy Heinrich Hushahn, refused access to Salomonson to the building of the Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANP).

[7] On October 26, 1940, the Gestapo seized Herman Salomonson from his apartment at Laan Copes van Cattenburch 129 in The Hague.

[6] For Herman Salomonson and his son Hans – a resistance fighter who was murdered in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp in January 1945 – commemorative stumbling blocks were laid on March 9, 2019, in front of their former home in The Hague, 129 Laan Copes van Cattenburch.

A. Maas Geesteranus) owned the painting by Vincent van Gogh, The Old Tower, currently in the Emil Bührle Collection.