Summary
On 8 May 1945 Canadian troops rolled into Amsterdam. The city celebrated. Was it also a liberation for Nol and Ter? Was this the start of a new and better era?
Following the end of the occupation Ter and Nol had to deal with revelations about the wartime period. For example, the press, including former clandestine papers that now appeared as dailies, such as Het Parool and De Waarheid, reported about Leo Frijda's girlfriend Irma Seelig, who was arrested and tried in 1948. She was accused of having been ‘induced’ by the SD detective Herbert Oelschlägel to lead the German police to the ‘most important’ people in CS-6. Evidence was heard about five people who were caught after Irma's arrest. Witnesses also spoke about awards Irma had received allegedly for this betrayal, including a ‘beautiful flat’ and clothes, such as a fur coat and silk underwear. In her defence, Irma said she had been ‘forced’. The prosecutor demanded 15 years imprisonment. Irma was convicted to 12 years. According to the newspapers, the sentence overlooked that, according to trial reports in newspapers, Irma was only involved ‘indirectly’ in the arrest of four CS-6 members; the group had been infiltrated by German agents who were involved in the arrests. Furthermore, the group should have been more alert after the capture of Gerrit Kastein, Leo Frijda and Hans Katan. The court reportedly stated that in its sentencing it had ‘considered that the suspect would have been executed [by the SD] and by committing treason had saved her life.’ Irma's appeal failed. Her former resistance comrades didn't hear from her again.
For a long time Ter and Nol lived as if the war wasn't over. Shortly after the liberation Nol was hospitalised in the clinic which was housed in the former Oosteinde Home. One morning he awoke in the room where the office of group leader Nathan Notowicz had been. A man was bending over him: ‘Nol, Nol wake up.’ A pronounced German accent. It was Notto. He had come to visit his old friend: ‘It was just as if I was back in the middle of the war – Notto, that room, everything was happening all over again.’
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- Individuals and Small Groups in Jewish Resistance to the HolocaustA Case Study of a Young Couple and their Friends, pp. 121 - 126Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2022