Peter Mathijs Smedts, Den vaderland getrouwe: Een boek over oorlog en verzet, 1962, S. 57

Peter Mathijs “Mathieu” Smedts

26 May 1913 – 11 August 1996

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 Penitentiary, he was eventually transferred as “Night-and-Fog” 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)

Liberation 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 Agreement (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.