Ans van Dijk

Biography

She was the daughter of Jewish parents, Aron van Dijk and Kaatje Bin. She married Bram Querido in 1927, and they separated in 1935. After the marriage ended, she began a lesbian relationship with a woman named Miep Stodel, and opened a millinery shop called Maison Evany in Amsterdam. The shop was closed by the Nazis in 1941 as part of their seizure of Jewish property (Jews were forbidden to own businesses or work in retail shops). Stodel fled to Switzerland in 1942.

Van Dijk was arrested on Easter Sunday 1943 by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; the Nazi intelligence service) detective Peter Schaap of the Office of Jewish Affairs of the Amsterdam police. After promising to work for the SD, van Dijk was released. Pretending to be a member of the resistance, she offered to help Jews find hiding places and obtain false papers. In this way, she trapped at least 145 people (including her own brother and his family). Some 85 of her victims later died in concentration camps. She may have been responsible for the deaths of as many as 700 people.

After the war, she moved to The Hague, where she was arrested at a friend's home on June 20, 1945, and charged with 23 counts of treason. On February 24, 1947, she was brought to the Special Court in Amsterdam. She confessed on all counts, explaining that she only acted out of self-preservation, and was sentenced to death. She appealed the conviction, but in September 1947 the Special Court of Appeals confirmed her punishment. Her request for a royal pardon was also rejected.

On 14 January 1948 she was executed by firing squad at Fort Bijlmer in the then municipality Weesperkarspel (now the Bijlmermeer municipality of Amsterdam). The night before her execution she was baptized and joined the Roman Catholic Church.