Fidelity discovered an archive in an attic room in New York while investigating resistance women. According to the newspaper, this includes dozens of letters from people who were active in the Dutch resistance.
The archive is in the hands of American administrator John Tepper Marlin. He says that these include letters from the family of the Zaanse banker and resistance member Walraven van Hall and as yet unknown Dutch resistance women.
The letters would have ended up in America because the Dutch-British writer Hilda van Stockum, Marlin’s mother, lived there. She would have used the letters to write her books, two of which were about the resistance in the Netherlands. Resistance member Van Hall would have been her cousin.
Marlin says against Fidelity three hundred letters. Dozens of them would be personal in nature and about the war.
The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (Niod) is in talks with Marlin about the archive. “It sounds special, but I only find it special when I’ve seen it,” says acquisitor Gertjan Dikken.
Historian Mart van de Wiel calls the archive “promising”. He tells the newspaper that the archive can provide new insights. “It is special that new source material is still being found eighty years later. This archive shows that history is never finished.”
2023-05-03 22:28:18
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