Groeger Karl

Bakker, Sjoerd Sjoerd Bakker, a tailor from Amsterdam, was an acquaintance of Willem Arondeus*, one of the masterminds behind the attack on the Municipal Population Registration Office in Amsterdam on March 27, 1943. The attack was meticulously planned; two of the participants were to arrive at the office at an unusual hour. Disguised as police officers, they would demand entry. Einar Berkovich, an assistant of Gerrit Jan van der Veen* was to obtain cloth and Sjoerd’s task was to sew the police uniforms. In the later stages of planning, it was decided that four members of the group, Rudolph Bloemgarten, Karl Gröeger*, Coos Hartogh*, and Samuel van Musschenbroek*, should also wear police uniforms for the execution of the plan. Sjoerd willingly made these extra disguises with cloth obtained by Berkovich. Only a few weeks after the attack the entire team was arrested. The secret had not been well kept and it turned out that too many Nazi sympathizers had information about the assault. After the Germans had offered a reward for information, there was no lack of informers willing to talk. On April 1, Sjoerd, a homosexual, was arrested. On June 18, he was tried and accused of collaborating in the scheme. During the course of the proceedings, an attempt was made to plead mitigating circumstances on the grounds that Arondeus, also a homosexual, had encouraged Sjoerd to join the others since they were allegedly involved in an emotional relationship. However, Sjoerd refuted this claim and was sentenced to death along with the other 12 men implicated. He was executed on July 1, 1943. In 1984, the Queen of the Netherlands posthumously honored the entire group involved in the attack on the Municipal Population Registration Office in Amsterdam with the Resistance Memorial Cross. On June 19, 1986, Yad Vashem recognized Sjoerd Bakker as Righteous Among the Nations. Gröger, Karl B. Karl B. Gröger, born in Vienna in 1918, was a socialist and opponent of fascism. WhenAustria was annexed to the German Reich, he left the country and settled in Amsterdam, where he continued his medical studies. Because he was Austrian-born, after the Germans invaded the Netherlands Gröger was drafted into the German army, but he was soon released because, as a one-quarter Jew (Vierteljude), he was not considered suitable for army service. Karl worked in a laboratory as a dental technician. Through this employment, Karl met some anti-Nazi Dutchmen, and in August 1942 they began to publish Rattenkruid (“Rat Poison”), an illegal newsletter, militantly advocating armed resistance (see the articles Coos Hartogh, Leendert Barentsen, Cornelius Roos in volume The Netherlands). The “Rattenkruidjongens,” as they called themselves, were part of a larger group that included artists and writers such as Willem Arondeus* (see volume The Netherlands) and Gerrit van der Veen* (see volume The Netherlands). The group practiced what they preached – they carefully planned a daring attack on the municipal population registration office in Amsterdam. Gröger instructed other members in the use of firearms, a knowledge he had acquired during his brief period in the Wehrmacht. On March 15, 1943, Gröger participated in an attempt to blow up train tracks near Sloterdijk. Twelve days later, on March 27, the attack on the population registration office took place. Members of the group, disguised as Dutch policemen, broke into the office and blew up filing cabinets with the purpose of destroying registry cards, so that the Germans would not find the information about Jews who were to be deported to labor camps and concentration camps, and also to make sure that false identity cards prepared by the Resistance, which were already in circulation, would not be identified as forgeries. A great number of files were destroyed. The attack, however, was only partially successful, because the Resistance fighters were not aware of the existence of another, identical, registry. Althoughthe damage was not quite as extensive as planned, the effect of the incident on the Dutch population was nevertheless significant, and the Resistance demonstrated its ability to cause damage. After the mission, Gröger hid on a farm, but the SS managed to find him after he sent a telegram to a friend, and he was arrested on April 8, 1943. The rest of the mission’s participants, as well as other members of the group, were caught by the Germans, largely due to their betrayal by paid Dutch informers. At the end of June 1943, the group was put on trial and 14 of its members were sentenced to death. Two of the condemned prisoners received clemency at the last minute. On July 1, 1943, 12 members of the underground were executed by a firing squad, including Gröger. In 1984, the Queen of the Netherlands posthumously honored all the victims with the Resistance Memorial Cross. On June 19 1986, Yad Vashem recognized Karl B. Gröger as Righteous Among the Nations.