Joseph Willem (Joop) Kolkman (1 December 1896 – 8 February 1944) was a Dutch journalist and diplomat. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he worked as vice-consul in Perpignan, France and helped save numerous Jewish refugees from persecution. In 2014 he was posthumously awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by Israel's institute of Holocaust remembrance

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

Biography

Kolkman was born on 1 December 1896 in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

. Until the German invasion of France, Kolkman worked as a journalist for the newspapers ''

De Telegraaf ''De Telegraaf'' (; en, The Telegraph) is the largest Dutch daily morning newspaper. Haro Kraak,Gaat Paul Jansen de crisis bij De Telegraaf oplossen?, '' de Volkskrant'', 2015. Retrieved 1 August 2015. Paul Jansen has been the editor-in-chief s ...

'' and ''

Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant ''NRC'', previously called ''NRC Handelsblad'' (), is a daily morning newspaper published in the Netherlands by NRC Media. It is generally accepted as a newspaper of record in the Netherlands. History ''NRC Handelsblad'' was first published on ...

'' in Paris. Shortly thereafter he was sent to the city of

Perpignan Perpignan (, , ; ca, Perpinyà ; es, Perpiñán ; it, Perpignano ) is the prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France, in the heart of the plain of Roussillon, at the foot of the Pyrenees a few kilometres from the ...

Vichy France Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...

to serve as vice-consul. During the war he used his possibilities as a diplomat to help Dutch refugees, many of them Jewish, by finding them safe houses, providing them with financial aid and rescuing them from concentration camps. This enabled them to get to safety in Spain and Portugal, from which they could cross to England. Many of his actions were illegal, including the forging of documents. He is estimated to have saved hundreds of persons. In early 1943 Kolkman tried to flee by crossing the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to C ...

into Spain, he was however arrested by German patrol units. In 1944 Kolkman died in the

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

, although other sources mention

Majdanek Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, a ...

. A plaque remembering Kolkman is placed next to the entrance of the building of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2014 he was posthumously awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations. The award was presented by the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, Haim Divon, to the Secretary General-General of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

Renée Jones-Bos Regina Veronica Maria "Renée" Jones-Bos (; born 20 December 1952) is a Dutch civil servant and diplomat. She served as Ambassador of the Netherlands to Russia from 2016 to 2019. Previously, Jones-Bos was Ambassador to the United States in Washin ...

, in the presence of the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs,

Frans Timmermans Frans is an Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish given name, sometimes as a short form of ''François''. One cognate of Frans in English is ''Francis''. Given name * Frans van Aarssens (1572–1641), Dutch diploma ...

Awards

* Médaille de la Résistance, France, 31 March 1947. *

Croix de guerre 1939–1945 The ''Croix de Guerre 1939–1945'' (English: War Cross 1939–1945) is a French military decoration, a version of the ''Croix de Guerre'' created on 26 September 1939 to honour people who fought with the Allies against the Axis forces at any ti ...

with palm, France, 16 April 1948. * Righteous Among the Nations, Israel, 17 February 2014.Joop Kolkman
at

website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kolkman, Joop 1896 births 1944 deaths 20th-century Dutch diplomats Dutch civilians killed in World War II Dutch people who died in Buchenwald concentration camp Recipients of the Resistance Medal Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France) Dutch Righteous Among the Nations Journalists from The Hague 20th-century Dutch journalists Diplomats from The Hague