Salome Michiel

Salomé, Michiel J. Michiel Salomé of Hardinxveld in South Holland, known as Chiel, spent several months in prison in 1941 for extending help to fugitives, but was later released for lack of evidence. He had no real contact with Jews until he became friendly with a neighbor and co-worker at the National Water Plant with whom he discussed the Jewish question at length. After seeing the first mass deportations of July 1942, Chiel began to devote himself to Resistance work. Towards the end of 1942, he came into contact with the Westerweel* group through his mother, who knew some of Joop and Willy Westerweel’s colleagues in Rotterdam. Chiel, who was then living in the village of Ede, Gelderland, found hiding places for 12 young Zionists. He also used his contacts in Limburg to find shelter for other young haverim from the Palestine Pioneer movement, the Hehalutz, many of whom found hideouts in Grubbenvorst. While out on a mission escorting a Jewish woman to her hiding place, Chiel was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo. He was incarcerated in the prison at the Amstelveenscheweg in Amsterdam for six weeks before returning to his former home. No longer feeling sufficiently safe, he moved to Boxtel, North Brabant, a small village where he had a better chance of going unnoticed by the authorities. During the war, Chiel Salomé was also involved in freeing prisoners from Nazi detention. In an attempt to free Letty Rudelsheim, a member of the religious Palestine Pioneers, the Bahad, from the Scheveningen prison, he was arrested along with Willy Westerweel and Letty at the Rotterdam railroad station in December 1943. From the Rotterdam prison, he was transferred to Vught, then to Dachau, from where he was liberated at the end of the war, returning to the Netherlands in a POW contingent. On June 16, 1964, Yad Vashem recognized Michiel J. Salomé as Righteous Among the Nations.