Johan (Han) van Lom (

Gorinchem Gorinchem ( or ), also spelled Gorkum, is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of of which is water. It had a population of in . The municipality of Gorinchem al ...

, 3 June 1918 –

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

, 6 March 1945) was a Dutch lawyer who worked with the Dutch resistance 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 opposing ...

and toward the end of the war collaborated with the Nazis, allowing them to arrest other members of the Dutch resistance in return for the freedom of a family friend. His betrayal of led to the arrest and subsequent execution of

Walraven van Hall Walraven "Wally" van Hall (10 February 1906 – 12 February 1945) was a Dutch banker and resistance leader during the occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. He founded the bank of the Resistance, which was used to distribute funds to ...

, banker and leader of the resistance. Van Lom himself was later executed by members of the resistance.

Life

Van Lom had trained as a lawyer but was unable to finish his studies during the German occupation. He found work with the lawyer Jan de Pont, whose firm, 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 o ...

and Amsterdam, defended Jewish families and members of the Dutch resistance. In that capacity he met a number of high-ranking resistance members, including Wim van Norden, then publisher of the illegal newspaper ''

Het Parool ''Het Parool'' () is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was first published on 10 February 1941 as a resistance paper during the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940–1945). In English, its name means ''The Password'' or ''The Motto' ...

''. De Pont managed to get a considerable number of ''Parool'' people released after a trial, the so-called tweede Parool-proces (second ''Parool'' trial), before the German ''Obergericht'' (High Court) at

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

in 1944. After the trial, van Norden asked de Pont to assist him in setting up a pension fund for resistance fighters. De Pont declined because he wanted at all costs to avoid being associated with (illegal activity), directing him instead to van Lom, an idealistic and newly married young man. Why van Lom subsequently turned collaborator is a matter of contention among journalists and family members; one theory, subscribed to by Loe de Jong in his ''

The Kingdom of the Netherlands During World War II ''The Kingdom of the Netherlands During World War II'' ( nl, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog) is the standard reference on the history of the Netherlands during World War II. The series was written by Loe de Jong (1914&nd ...

'' and based on a confession that van Lom made when questioned by the Dutch resistance (the interrogation was led by Wim Sanders), is that van Lom had an affair with a friend of his wife and his wife's sister. According to this theory, van Lom gave up information that led to the arrest of a number of resistance members in exchange for the freedom of the young woman. He had negotiated with of the

Sicherheitsdienst ' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the '' Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...

in Amsterdam that none of the people arrested were to be executed; Viebahn kept his promise, although he did not feel bound by it in the case of van Hall. Van Lom fled Amsterdam after the arrests in January 1945, and returned in March. After a meeting with a resistance member he was abducted and interrogated, and sentenced to die by poisoning. Either he refused to drink the poison or it did not have the desired effect and he was finally despatched with a shot to the neck, his body dumped in the

Keizersgracht The Keizersgracht (; "Emperor's canal") is a canal in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is the second of the three main Amsterdam canals that together form the Grachtengordel, or canal belt, and lies between the inner Herengracht and outer Prinsengr ...

. He was 26 years old.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lom, Johan van 1918 births 1945 deaths People from Gorinchem People executed by the Netherlands by firearm Executed Dutch collaborators with Nazi Germany 20th-century Dutch lawyers