I’d like to share some of the discussion at the book launch symposium in Amsterdam last month. Unfortunately I didn’t have anything to write with, so this is not as detailed as I’d like.

Professor Hans Blom began the discussion by reminding us all that a person needed both the desire to be a resister and the opportunity to do something in order to join the resistance. Then Ad van Liempt talked about why some people chose to join the resistance. Jean Weidner, for example, felt very strongly that it was his Christian duty to resist the occupier by helping the persecuted. Other resisters also felt compelled by their strong Christian beliefs.

As he said later in private, today you might even call Weidner and these other Christians religious fanatics, but you would also applaud their resistance.

During the discussion, however, Max van Weezel asked me if Weidner’s strong Christian beliefs were shared by everyone in Dutch-Paris. The answer is definitely “no”. Dutch-Paris had a strikingly ecumenical membership ranging from Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, church-going lay people, to Jews to atheists. There was even a communist of the non-Soviet variety.

Dick Verkijk made an interesting observation from the audience. Mr Verkijk had a long career as a journalist in the Netherlands. In fact, he made the 1967 documentary about Dutch-Paris (available on Youtube with English subtitles, follow the link in the side bar). So he met and interviewed many resisters. In his opinion, those men and women experienced joy in resistance despite the dangers because they were taking action against the occupation. As he said, if you do not accept unfreedom, you are free. So resisters were free in unfree circumstances because they refused to accept those circumstances.

Although many books have been written on why some people chose to resist while most did not, I don’t think we’ll ever have a satisfactory answer. For one thing, no one asked that question at the end of the war because it seemed self-explanatory then. I also suspect that the answer would change slightly for each man and woman. We could certainly have continued that discussion for much longer at the symposium if we’d had more time.

What we could conclude at the symposium, however, was that all resisters were men and women of strong conviction. That conviction might have stemmed from religious beliefs or patriotic anger or other causes, but wherever it came from, it was the strength of their convictions that made them resisters (along with the opportunity to do something, of course).