Peter Mathijs Smedts, Den vaderland getrouwe: Een boek over oorlog en verzet, 1962, S. 57
Before the Arrest
Peter Mathijs Smedts was born on 26 May 1913, in Helden, Netherlands. His parents wished for him to become a priest, but he left the seminary early. Instead, he studied English in Nijmegen and London and became a journalist. In London, Peter Mathijs Smedts initially worked as a correspondent for various Dutch newspapers. He then worked in Amsterdam for the news agency United Press and from 1940 for the Swiss news agency Schweizer Press Telegraph.
Arrest and Imprisonment
Peter Mathijs Smedts went underground after publishing an article about the relations between Germany, Japan, and the Dutch East Indies in the underground newspaper Het Parool, which had been illegally published since 1941. According to his own statements, he helped support Jews in hiding and organised escape routes with friends.
Printing press of Het Parool from the occupation period
Door Marc Chang Sing Pang - Het Parool, CC BY-SA 2.0
He was arrested on 4 November in Brussels and imprisoned in the Brussels-St. Gilles Wehrmacht Prison. Two weeks later, he managed to escape during the transfer from Brussels to The Hague, but was recaptured in the Netherlands on 27 November 1942. Peter Mathijs Smedts was imprisoned for nearly a year in Scheveningen Police Prison in the Netherlands and was transferred to Utrecht Prison in October 1943. He himself recounted that he was sentenced to death for espionage on 30 October 1943. From Sonnenburg PenitentiaryThe sentence of penal servitude was imposed as a prison sentence for criminal offences along with the loss of civil rights. The milder prison sentence was imprisonment. Under the Nazi regime, the punitive measures imposed in penal servitude, particularly forced labour and deprivation, were significantly intensified., he was eventually transferred as “Night-and-Fog”At least 7,000 people suspected of resistance from France, the Benelux countries, and Norway were deported to the German Reich and imprisoned there following the “Night-and-Fog”-Decree of 7 December 1941. They were completely isolated, given a number instead of their name, and were not allowed to contact relatives, fellow prisoners, or the outside world. Many died in custody or were sentenced to death and executed. prisoner No. 449 to Wolfenbüttel Prison in March 1944. In his memoirs Den Vaderland Getrouwe: Een boek over oorlog en verzet (Loyal to the Fatherland: A Book about War and Resistance), published in 1962, he recalled his imprisonment in Wolfenbüttel Prison:
“Wolfenbüttel was a real joy in the first days. We were placed in bright cells, with only two people in a single-person cell. There was a toilet and even running water. The food was still quite tasty there, certainly better than in Sonnenburg. The guards were very correct. And yet, this penitentiary became the most terrible experience we had encountered up to that point. In the courtyard stood a small house with a guillotine. Week in, week out, almost every Tuesday, the tormentors came to behead those sentenced to death.”
Peter Mathijs Smedts, Den vaderland getrouwe: Een boek over oorlog en verzet, 1962, S. 57 (excerpt)
As a “Night-and-Fog” prisoner, he performed forced labour for the company Voigtländer & Sohn, which produced telescopic sights and binoculars for the Wehrmacht in Wolfenbüttel Prison from 1943. The working conditions for the prisoners were very poor. Their workplace was the former institution’s chapel, which was very cold. The inmates had to work up to 12 hours a day there.
“We assembled binoculars in a factory that used to be the prison chapel. At 6:00 a.m., we were taken from the cells and returned to the cells at 6:00 p.m. Only on Tuesdays did we usually stop an hour earlier because our dear guards had to bring those sentenced to death from the cell to the guillotine. They were on the ground floor below us, the death candidates, as they were called. They were always shackled.”
Peter Mathijs Smedts, Den vaderland getrouwe: Een boek over oorlog en verzet, 1962, S. 57 (excerpt)
Liberation and Return to the Netherlands
As the Allied troops approached, the inmates hoped that Wolfenbüttel Prison would soon be liberated. However, Peter Mathijs Smedts was transferred with other “Night-and-Fog” prisoners to Brandenburg-Görden Penitentiary, where he was liberated on 27 April 1945.
“The news from the fronts was almost always good, really good […] On 7 April 1945, we heard that the English were only about 50 kilometres from Wolfenbüttel. Just two more days, just one more day […] And about the other possibility that everyone had in mind but no one spoke about, the chance of being murdered at the last moment, there was even more silence than before. The topic was taboo. Happy, but not completely reassured, we went from the factory to our cell on Saturday evening. Sunday morning came the order: Transport. All NN prisoners were leaving. We got our civilian clothes. We walked through Wolfenbüttel under SS guard. […] I hope they have mercy on me, I thought.”
Peter Mathijs Smedts, Den vaderland getrouwe: Een boek over oorlog en verzet, 1962, S. 61 f. (Auszug)
LiberationThe law (Bundesentschädigungsgesetz), retroactively effective from October 1953, was the first nationwide compensation law for people who suffered expropriation, forced labour, deportation, and imprisonment during National Socialism. Eligible were persons who had their residence in the federal territory or the former German Reich by 31 December 1952 or earlier, as well as their surviving dependants. Foreign Nazi victims were thus largely excluded from the law. at Brandenburg-Görden Penitentiary, drawing by the Norwegian NN prisoner Wilfred Jensenius, 145 (after the liberation)
Gedenkstätte Wolfenbüttel
Peter Mathijs Smedts returned to the Netherlands on 15 June 1945. There, he worked as an editor and editor-in-chief for various newspapers. Between 1955 and 1978, he published ten books, in which he also addressed his time in the resistance and imprisonment.
Peter Mathijs Smedts’ book Waarheid en leugen in het Verzet (Truth and Lies in the Resistance), 1978
Compensation
In the 1960s, Peter Mathijs Smedts applied for benefits from the Centraal Afwikkelingsbureau Duitse Schade-Uitkeringenunder the Bilateral Compensation AgreementBetween 1959 and 1964, the Federal Republic of Germany concluded bilateral compensation agreements with twelve Western European states. These agreements included lump-sum payments intended to settle all compensation claims. The distribution of the funds was the responsibility of the recipient state. (Globalabkommen) between the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany. He received payments in 1964 and 1965. From 1972, he received an extraordinary pension under the Wet Buitengewoon Pensioen (Extraordinary Pensions Act). His actions were thus recognised as resistance activities.