Roorda Binne

Roorda, Binne Binne Roorda, a widower from Oost Dongeradeel, Groningen, with five children, became increasingly involved in anti-Nazi activities as the war progressed. A teacher and devout Calvinist, Binne believed that it was imperative to fight the evil regime. When the deportations of Jews commenced in 1942, he was asked to hide Aletta (Philips) van Dam and her 12-year-old son, Jakob, whom he did not know. Even though Binne’s apartment was very small and he shared it with his 5 children and the nanny, he agreed to shelter the fugitives in the attic. The very same day that Aletta and Jakob arrived at the Roorda home, October 3, 1942, her husband, Meier, and their other son, aged 15, arrived there too. Binne agreed that they could all stay until he found a permanent hiding place. Before long, the Roordas and the van Dams developed a good relationship and it was decided that they would stay there despite the small size of their hideaway. One month later, Aletta’s father, Benjamin Philips, was apprehended. Her mother, Geertje, was in a hospital in Arnhem, Gelderland, awaiting deportation. Without hesitation, Binne traveled to Arnhem on December 5, 1942, and picked her up. He eluded the German guards and smuggled the woman out of the hospital under the cover of darkness and returned with her to his home in Groningen. On March 10, 1943, the night before Meier’s parents were due to report for labor in the east, Binne visited them and convinced them to hide temporarily in his home until a safer place could be found. Together with their niece, Rosa Lazarus, who took care of them, they too moved to the Roorda home. Thus, by mid-1943, there were eight Jewish fugitives crowded under the roof of the Roorda house. They were only allowed downstairs at night when neighbors would not notice their presence. Binne taught the two van Dam boys so that they would be able to continue with their studies after the war. The underground supplied Binne with extra ration coupons and thenanny bought small quantities of food from many different stores. In the meantime, Binne continued with other underground activities such as disseminating news from illegal radio broadcasts, arranging food coupons for fugitives, and looking for hiding places for persecuted people. In his spare time, he studied to become a minister, a course that he completed just before his arrest on February 8, 1945. Binne was apprehended after a Resistance cell in the area had been discovered and Binne’s name had been mentioned. German soldiers knocked on his front door one night but he refused to open it until the van Dams and his two sons who were evading forced labor were out of sight. Impatient at the delay, the soldiers broke a window, threw tear gas into the house, and then searched it. They found no one, but Binne was interrogated under torture. He did not speak and was arrested and sent to the Neuengamme and then the Sandbostel concentration camps. Reports mention that Binne was an inspiration to his fellow prisoners, always guided by his firm religious beliefs. On April 15, 1945, just before the liberation of the camp, Binne died, aged 47. In 1958, his body was identified in a mass grave and was moved to the Netherlands where he was buried in the honorary cemetery in Loenen, Gelderland. On September 8, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Binne Roorda as Righteous Among the Nations.