On 25 October 1944, Fake Krist, a fanatic employee of the German Sicherheitsdienst, was shot dead by the Haarlem resistance, in the Netherlands Initially, the attack was attributed to Hannie Schaft’s resistance group, but later it turned out that a police squad with members from Halfweg, resistance group had liquidated Fake Krist. To this end, a rifle had been set up in a piano in a school gymnasium the day before. When the resistance wanted to enter the school, it was interrupted by a janitor who had to be tied up. Then, with a few gunshots, on his bicycle, anxious Krist was liquidated.
The book The Assault by Harry Mulisch is based on the attack.
Fake Krist was a member of the NSB and a police officer. He was very active in the persecution of resistance members, people in hiding, and Jews. Nico Sikkel gave the order to liquidate him. The plan was to shoot him from the school on Westergracht, across the street from where Krist was staying. This required a sniper. Gommert Krijger and Jan Overzet were approached for this. Hannie Schaft and Truus Oversteegen had also been instructed to liquidate Fake Krist; they happened to be present in Haarlem on the same day to see the liquidation take place before their own eyes. Reprisals followed immediately.
The Nazis retaliated the attack on Fake Krist by first selecting ten men from the prison of the Weteringschans in Amsterdam and bringing them to Haarlem. Secondly, they executed the ten men in public at the park behind the Cathedral Basilica of St. Bavo.
In addition, the Nazis also set fire to a block of four houses on the Westergracht.
One day after the attack, two German military trucks stopped early in the morning at the park behind the Bavo. The civil servant Johan van Rijn saw it happen from his bedroom window.
Passers-by were forced to watch the Germans retaliate. The resistance fighter Truus Oversteegen was there. With others, she was stopped when she happened to pass by. Five men jumped handcuffed from one of the trucks. They were set up in front of the gate of the park. When the guns were put to the shoulders, an old man hesitantly began to sing the Wilhelmus, the Dutch National anthem. A machine gun volley sounded and the men were killed. Immediately afterwards, five other men suffered the same fate. As an additional measure of reprisal, four houses on the corner Leidsezijstraat-Westergracht were destroyed. They had to be evacuated within 45 minutes and went up in flames. The inhabitants couldn’t take much more than a few clothes they’d hastily snatched from the coat rack.
The Dutch author Harry Mulisch wrote the book The Assault in 1982, based on the events of 25-26 October 1944. In 1986 Dutch Film Director Fons Rademakers made a movie based on the book. It was also called The Assault and received the Oscar in 1987 for best film in a foreign language.
sources
History of Sorts 
Reblogged this on History of Sorts.
LikeLike