April 17, 1945: Hannie Schaft, a leading figure in the Netherlands' resistance to the tyranny of Nazi Germany, is executed in Bloemendaal. She was 24 years old.
Jannetje Johanna Schaft was born on September 16, 1920 in Haarlem, North Holland, the Netherlands. The original Dutch settlers of what became New York City named the northern part of Manhattan Island "Harlem" after this city.
"Hannie" wanted to become a human rights lawyer, and became friends with Jewish activists at the University of Amsterdam. The Nazis swept in and took over in 1940. In 1943, they forced university students throughout the country to sign a declaration of allegiance to the occupation authorities.
Like 80 percent of Dutch students, Hannie refused to sign. She was expelled, and took 2 Jewish friends, Sonja Frenk and Philine Polak, with her as she moved back in with her parents, who took the friends in, to hide them from the Nazis.
Because of her gender, the Dutch resistance only wanted her to act as a courier. She was determined to have a more active role. She learned German, and could alternately converse with German soldiers to their faces and sabotage them behind their backs. She even served as a diversion while assassinations were carried out. When seen at one, she was identified as "das Mädchen mit dem roten Haar" -- "the girl with the red hair." (In her native Dutch, "het meisje met het rode haar.")
She ended up on the Nazis' most-wanted list. On June 21, 1944, she and Jan Bonekamp carried out an assassination on a Dutch policeman who was collaborating with the Nazis. Each shot him once, and got away, but Bonekamp was also wounded, and taken to a hospital. He gave Hannie's name to the nurses, who were collaborators. The Nazis arrested her parents, hoping that she would turn herself in, in exchange for their release. She did not. Instead, she laid low, and her parents were released after 2 months.
Although red hair is very common in the Netherlands, keeping her own would have been tantamount to suicide. So she died her hair black and wore glasses. She carried out assassinations and sabotage, ran guns, and distributed banned newspapers. She did this knowing that the Allies had already liberated France and Italy, but not knowing how close the Allies were to winning the war. After all, they hadn't yet liberated her country.
On March 21, 1945, Hannie was distributing an illegal Communist newspaper, de Waarheid -- like the main Communist newspaper in Russia, Pravda, its name means "The Truth." This was a cover for what she was really doing, transporting secret documentation for the Resistance. She was arrested, as was her former colleague, Anna Wijnhoff. Anna betrayed Hannie, telling the Nazis to look at her hair, and see the red roots under the black dye.
She was executed on April 17, ordered by Willy Lages, the director of the SS in the Netherlands. Mattheus Schmitz took out his pistol, and fired at her head. She was only grazed, and, with her last words, yelled, "Ik schiet beter!" ("I shoot better!") Maarten Kuiper was next up, and he didn't miss or graze.
The Netherlands would not be liberated until May 5, 1945, 18 days after the execution of Hannie Schaft, 5 days after the death of Adolf Hitler, and 3 days before the overall Nazi surrender, V-E Day. Hannie Schaft was exhumed, and given a state funeral and burial at the Dutch Honorary Cemetery Bloemendaal, on the orders of the restored Queen Wilhelmina, who attended, and called her "the symbol of the Resistance."
History has lost track of Schmitz, and it is not known if he was ever charged with war crimes. Kuiper was later incorrectly alleged to have been present at the arrest of Anne Frank in Amsterdam on August 4, 1944. He was executed for war crimes on August 30, 1948.
Lages was also sentenced to death, but Queen Juliana, newly on the throne after her mother Wilhelmina's abdication, refused to sign his death warrant, and his sentence was commuted to life in prison. In 1966, he was released, due to failing health. And yet, he lived for another 5 years.
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April 17, 1945 was a Tuesday. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. It was an off-day for the Stanley Cup Finals, between Games 4 and 5. The Toronto Maple Leafs led the Detroit Red Wings, 3 games to 1. It would go to the full 7 games, before the Leafs won it.
This was also Opening Day for the baseball season. These games were played:
* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-4 at Yankee Stadium. Atley Donald was the winning pitcher. Russ Derry hit 2 home runs and had 5 RBIs. For his entire major league career, made possible only by the manpower drain of The War, the 28-year-old outfielder from Princeton, Missouri hit 17 homers and had 73 RBIs.
* The New York Giants beat the Boston Braves, 11-6 at Braves Field in Boston. Giants player-manager Mel Ott went 2-for-3 with 2 walks and an RBI. Phil Weintraub went 2-for-3 with a home run, 2 walks, and 4 RBIs. Former Cincinnati Reds catcher Ernie Lombardi also hit a home run. Nap Reyes went 4-for-5 with an RBI.
* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-2 at Ebbets Field.
* The Washington Senators beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 14-8 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 5-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-6 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Dean Clay singled Woody Williams home with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning.
* The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. This would be the only season between 1942 and 1946 that the Cardinals did not win the National League Pennant. It was also the only season that the Cardinals' Stan Musial spent in wartime service. Baseball fans should not believe in coincidences.
* The St. Louis Browns beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. This was the major league debut of the Browns' one-armed outfielder, Pete Gray. I have a separate entry for that event. He was put in left field on this day, wearing Number 14, and batting 2nd. The opposing pitcher was Hal Newhouser, the previous year's AL MVP. Gray went 1-for-4, and Sig Jakucki outpitched Newhouser.
Three days later, the Senators would have their home opener at Griffith Stadium, in Washington, losing to the Yankees, 6-3. President Franklin D. Roosevelt threw out the ceremonial first ball in each of his 1st 9 years in office, setting a record now unbreakable due to the 22nd Amendment. But he followed the lead of Woodrow Wilson in World War I, and refused to do it again for the duration of the war.
Vice President Harry Truman was set to do the honors this time. But FDR died on April 12, making Truman President. So, on this occasion, the first ball was thrown out by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn of Texas.
For the 1st time ever, the Browns were defending American League Champions. But the Tigers would rebound, and beat the Cubs in the World Series.
