Herman Laatsman

Self-imposed mission

Herman Laastman was appointed to the Dutch Embassy of Paris on 16 September 1939. After the fall of France, the Netherlands Consulate ceased to exist and became a member of the "Dutch Section" of the Swedish Consulate. In October 1942, the Swedish Consul warned Laatsman that the German authorities refused to protect Dutch interests in France any further. The members of the Dutch Section were asked to return to the Netherlands.

When the German invaders occupied the Netherlands at the beginning of Second World War, its Government decided to continue the war against Germany in exile. On 13 May 1940, Queen Wilhelmina and her family arrived safely in England on HMS Codrington. The Dutch Government soon followed and formed a government in London. On the BBC, Queen Wilhelmina addressed messages twice a week to the Dutch people, asking them to be courageous and to fight an enemy whose objective was to reduce the Dutch people to slavery.

About 5.000 Dutch people were living in Paris at that time. Retirees needed their pensions to survive. Many other Dutch people fled from the Netherlands and traveled through France to join the Dutch fighters in England or to escape from religious persecution. Few of the Embassy staff remained in Paris and the staff was confronted with crucial choices: move to Vichy where the French legal government had relocated.

Herman Laatsman and his family chose to fight. He and his wife organised and participated in the French underground movements and helped Dutch people to flee religious persecution or to join the Dutch forces in England.

Laatsman and his wife, Rocca Laatsman, hid at Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche. He set up and developed several resistance networks. He kept his flat 11 rue Schoelcher at Paris XVIe and used it to hide refugees. He took the train every day to Paris to continue and brought funds from the Netherlands to finance Dutch people residing in Paris.

Foundation of Dutch-Paris

In September 1943 Laatsman became acquainted with J. Weidner, thanks to Baron Brantsen, major of Special Services at the Dutch Embassy in Paris. The order to merge part of their resistance networks and organise an escape line for allied pilots shot down by the Nazis all over Europe came from London. It was notified by the Dutch Ambassador in Switzerland, Bosch Van Rosenthal, whom Laatsman and Weidner met in Switzerland in November 1943.

Captain John Weidner became the overall chief for the escape line. He had two lieutenants, Jacques Rens and Edmont Chait, who operated the escape line from the north of the Netherlands to the Pyrenees and the south of Spain. Dutch-Paris received funds from the Dutch, British and American Governments, mainly through the Dutch Embassy in Switzerland.

Laatsman commanded the French section of Dutch-Paris in Paris. He received money from several sources for the resistance activities he carried out with Baron Brantsen.
Born in Angerlo on 24 October 1877, was a Commander of the Dutch Army appointed in 1939 as an attaché to the Dutch Legation in Paris for special services. He was in fact a liaison officer for the intelligent services of Dutch and French armies.

Baron Branten received the French Légion d’honneur. For his resistance work in Paris he was awarded the highest Dutch civilian resistance medal: the Resistance Cross. Only 100 people (all posthumously) received medal. Baron Brantsen was deported on 15 August 1944 to Buchenwald, with Herman Laatsman. He died at Buchenwald on the 9 December 1944.

Important financial support was brought through General A.G. Van Tricht, Netherlands military attaché at the Dutch Embassy in Bern. Dutch-Paris provided support to allied airmen, as well as information on German activities. Through the connections of Suzanne Hiltermann-Souloumiac, Laatsman had direct entries and support inside the German Embassy. Karl-Heinz Gerstner provided services, confidential information and false-true papers to Dutch Paris.

Laatsman was considered by the pilots he rescued as a genial manager. He kept many of the airmen hidden in his Paris’ flat 11 rue Schoelcher. According to their testimony, the following airmen were saved:

The role of Laatsman in the existence, organisation and operations of Dutch-Paris was decisive. He suggested the name of the network, ‘Dutch-Paris’.

Members were recruited because of their dedication. They were mainly Belgian, Dutch and French. The network also had German and Spanish members. It included 300 people who forged identity papers, looked for temporary shelters for fugitives and escorted them across borders.

Achievements

Few agents of the Dutch Embassy remained in Paris so Laatsman had to take many decisions alone to assist the remaining Dutch citizenas. As top leaders of the Dutch-Paris network, Laatsman and Weidner were "responsible for the rescue of more than 1,080 people.

Assistance to the Dutch people in Paris

When pensions for retired Dutch people went unpaid, Laatsman decided to move to Den Haag. He travelled there several times using the resources of his network, working as an employee of the Cie des Wagons Lits. In Den Haag, he made contact with Carriere at the Council of Civil Pensions who gave him the necessary funds.

Rescue of European resistors and Dutch Jews

Many people escaped Europe using the connections created by the Dutch of Paris to the "passeurs" of the Pyrenees. One of the "passages" called the "Freedom Track" is still commemorated. It started in the town of Saint-Girons (Ariège). Until very recently, French survivors joined the Free French Forces of Général Charles de Gaulle used this trail to meet the guides who carried them through and saved their lives. This route was established particularly for Frenchmen fleeing from the Nazis in an attempt to join de Gaulle. As the war went on, Freedom track was used by shot-down Allied airmen fleeing along the Pat O'Leary, Dutch-Paris and Marie-Claire escape lines.

During the second week of July each year, a four-day hike cakes celebrates guides and safe-house keepers who opened this route open during the war.

In the book dedicated to Ann Frank, Van Galen Last & Wolfwinkel emphasize the considerable part taken by Laatsman and Weidner's networks in saving Jewish people. They joined neutral countries such as Switzerland, Sweden or Spain and from there, the fugitive left for England. 3000 Dutch Jews succeeded in escaping through these countries. Dutch-Paris saved almost 250 Dutchmen.

Rescue of Allied airmen

Laatsman received many testimonials came from pilots who had fallen behind enemy lines. For example, in Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society, Clayton and Ken dropped between the Zuider Zee and Kinselmere. Unseen by the occupants, they were found by the Schouten family who hid him. They then passed him on to the Dutch Underground. With the help of others, the Dutch-Paris line got him to Paris. When their Parisian agents were arrested, the men slipped away and walked south. At nightfall, they found a place to stay. The next day, French people bought tickets and put Clayton and Ken on a train heading for Toulouse.

In the book on Weidner's role in the Dutch-Paris escape line, Herbert Ford describes Laatsman as the head of his Paris underground group. Laatsman provided him with data about the movement of refugees through the city as well as secret information which he has to take to Switzerland. In addition, Laatsman directed the movement of the American pilots in Toulouse. He directed one member of the network to leave for Toulouse to guide them. He also provided money and hotel reservations: "We've made good contacts there; they will keep your name out of the hotel register".

The network's fall

Only the quality of the management and the loyalty of its members explains the relatively long life and efficiency of the organisation in the hostile environment where its action took place. Every place was dangerous, not just at the border, but everywhere. Thpugh many people were arrested and tortured, these people would not break.

Suzy Kraay was arrested in February 1944 at the Café de l’Arc en Ciel, Place des Fêtes, by inspectors Bottraud and Balcon, and taken to the Commissaire Bizoire at the Préfecture de Police. She was then sent to the Gestapo. Only after physical and psychological torture by her interrogators, 150 members of the Dutch-Paris underground were arrested, including 19 American airmen. 40% never returned.

Silence and sabotage

Laatsman was arrested on 26 February 1944. He was imprisoned for 8 months and tortured at "la prison de Fresnes". His interrogator was by an officer named "Willy", a tall blond German who spoke fluently both French and Dutch. Laatsman got the "third degree treatment". Tortured several times in front of his son, he did not break. He would see never his son again. The circumstances of his son's death remain unknown.

A few days before the liberation of Paris by the famous French General, Philippe Leclerc de Hautecloque, and his heroic "2e DB", Laatsman was moved from Fresnes to Buchenwald on 15 August 1944. After 5 days in overcrowded cattle boxcars, he arrived. 168 allied airmen were also part of the terrible journey. Laatsman was then transferred to Dora on the 28 October 1944. Enslaved and forced to build V1 and V2 rockets, he organised the sabotage of the building process.

Once again, he managed to survive, and was sent to Bergen Belsen where he regained his freedom on 15 April 1945 at thanks to the British troops who helped him to return safely to the Netherlands.

Disappointment and honour

After his return to Paris and as reward for his courageous behavior, Herman Laatsman was promoted to the post of vice-consul. Like most resistors, he endured Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His accusations against his former colleagues, for their behaviour during the war, made him an embarrassment for his superiors in Paris. In 1946, he was transferred to the Dutch embassy in Brussels as a first class chancellor.

Queen Wilhelmina then asked him to join the Order of Oranje-Nassau (20). On the medal given by the Queen of the Netherlands, one can read: Je maintiendrai.