On this day, 27 March 1943, gay anti-fascist resistance fighter Willem Arondeus led a group in bombing the Amsterdam Public Records Office which the Nazis had used to identify Dutch Jews. The attack destroyed thousands of files which could be used to check if documents forged by the resistance were genuine or not.
Within a week, Arondeus and the other members of the group were arrested. One of the participants, Frieda Belinfante, a musician and lesbian, managed to evade capture. Twelve, including Arondeus, were executed that July by firing squad. In his last message before his execution, Arondeus said, “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.”
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