Johannes Post

Dutch farmer and Anti-Revolutionary Party local politician, who became a heroic resistance fighter during WW2. Johannes Post was the youngest child of the farmer and reformed local ARP politician Jan Wolters Post (1 Sep 1863, Kerkenveld - 10 Oct 1942, Hollandscheveld) en Trijntje Tempen (11 Oct 1865, Hijken - 16 Feb 1937, Hollandscheveld). On 30 April 1887 they married and between 1888 and 1906 they got eleven children. He followed one year MULO secondary education, then started working on the farm of his father. On 26 November 1929 Post married Dina Salomons (3 July 1903, Nieuw Buinen - 26 Febr 1991, Rijnsburg) in Borger, that year he started a farm for himself. He also engaged in the marketing of poultry, eggs and horses. They got nine children,of which their first child Jan Wolter (13 Oct 1930 - 20 Oct 1930, Nieuwlande) died after a week. He joined like his father the Calvinistic Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP), and became in 1935 alderman of Oosterhesselen. He was known as a hard-working, intelligent, non-conformist and highly principled personality, who was not afraid of taking risks. But he was also member of the Calvinistic Reformed Church and the Christian Anti-Revolutionary Party, who were fiercely opposed to communists and anarchists. In the dualistic Calvinistic view Gd will has ordained his Universal government / will on earth. So oppression against it, as Isaiah proclaimed was a suicidal step. When the German invasion started on 10 May 1940, he was shocked and wanted to fight. But the Dutch capitulation followed soon after the bombardment of the medieval city of Rotterdam (14 May 1940, 13h30). Unlike the Dutch communists, anarchists and left wing intelligentsia, who started the resistance movement soon, he was not on the Nazi death list. Even most Dutch Jews, had no idea of what was coming, as the Holocaust was implemented gradually by the Nazis, in small steps, to prevent upheaval. Having to sustain a large family, he went on with his farmers work, but at the same time started with "low profile" passive resistance, like refusing to pay income tax and spreading "illegal" uncensored papers. In 1942 he met the pastors son and landscape architect Arnold Douwes (26 Jan 1906, Laag-Keppel - 7 Febr 1999, Utrecht). Douwes, who later wrote with Max Léons the book "Mitswa en christenplicht" (Mitzvah and Christian duty) about the modest heroes of the illegality, would hide with Post and set up an organisation to save Jews in their "new land". Qouting the World Center for Holocaust Research, Documentation, Education and Commemoration on Nieuwenlande: "A unique instance of collective rescue took place in the Dutch village of Nieuwlande. In 1942 and 1943 the village inhabitants resolved that every household would hide one Jewish family or at least one Jew. Given the collective nature of the activity, the danger to the village was small – there was no fear of denunciation since all the village dwellers were partners to the "crime". All 117 inhabitants of that village were recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations". In May 1943 the Dutch ex-military Jan Wildschut (28 Nov 1913, Den Bosch - 31 Jan 1945, Kamp Leonberg) hided with him, as in April 1943 was announced that all military man would be become prisoner of war again. He was a die hard and preferred to fight. Wildschut became a prominent member in the "Knokploeg" (fighting gang) of Post and Douwes. Together with his brother Marinus Post (3 August 1902, Hollandscheveld - 7 Nove Read less