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1944 Discovered and arrested

Cas Oorthuys

Zuiderkerk
City centre
Zuiderkerk
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© Nederlands Fotomuseum / Cas Oorthuys

Cas Oorthuys - Photographs of resistance and hunger

Cas Oorthuys becomes involved in the Ondergedoken Camera (the hidden Camera). This is a group of about 30 photographers which is established around Dolle Dinsdag (Crazy Tuesday), 5 September 1944. Their main goal is to photograph the liberation, but that’s late in coming. Because of the increasing German terror and a terrible winter of hunger and starvation, resistance and hunger became the most important subjects for this group instead.

Oorthuys photographed starving Amsterdammers and dead bodies laid out next to the Zuiderkerk. Photos taken by the group of the hunger and misery experienced in the west of the Netherlands were smuggled to England. These help convince the Allies that they need to drop food supplies into the country.

 

Source: Amsterdam van Cas Oorthuys, Flip Bool and Henk Raaff.

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Cas Oorthuys

Cas Oorthuys is a photojournalist. During the war he is a member of the resistance and in September 1944 he joins the Ondergedoken Camera (Hidden Camera); a group of Dutch photographers who document the occupation. After the liberation Oorthuys becomes the photographer of the reconstruction of the country.

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  • 1950

  • To those who protected the Dutch Jews during the years of the occupation. Protected by your love. Encouraged by your resistance. Mourning with you.

    Part of the citation on the monument ‘Jewish Gratitude’
  • picture:Once a year, two minutes silence

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