Illegal magazines in Zeeland
J.N. Houterman
One of the war-time activities in Zeeland was creating
and distributing illegal magazines and printed-matter,
to keep the people of Zeeland informed of the real
(military) events and matters. In the first years of the
war, these writings would usually be hand-written or a
few carbon-copied, typewritten pamphlets, to be dis
tributed in a close circle of locals.
In later years, many obviously more professional
editions were either printed or stenciled. Besides
distribution of the illegal newspaper Trouw (Faith),
which origins where national, there were also local
editions of resistance-papers. On Walcheren Trouw
was often circulated. There were also the Middelburg-
editions of 'Chronicle of the Week' and Luctor et Emergo
the Vlissingen-based 'Digest of News' and a news
digest without a title, made at the Town-Registrar of
Middelburg. This was made by J.A. Stroo and L.J.
Geers, two gentlemen who first hectographed it, later
switching to the stencil-machine. The magazine, with
a circulation of something between 40 and 200
copies (depending on supplies) had a daily circulation
from the middle of 1943 up until 2nd of December,
1944. Not much is known about this. More is known
concerning the history of Trouw. It's war-time history
was documented by one of the editors of those days,
J.P. (Jan) van Alten in the book 'An inflammatory writing
in Zeeland', published in 2001.
Chronicle of the Week
In the week of July 25th 1943, the first edition of
'Chronicle of the Week' (CW) appeared in Zeeland.
After the first edition was published in Leiden on July
20th 1943, it was circulated to other Dutch towns, like
Middelburg. As the name suggests, it was a weekly
chronicle of the news, with a day-to-day digest of the
main wartime news from the battle-theatre. In
Middelburg, the Zeeland Dairy Milk-federation on the
Rouaansekei was the hart of this periodical. Mr. Cor
Zee, an administrator of the milk-federation set it up
with Rijk Janssen, a man that was then in hiding with
Cor Zee. The copy for the paper was delivered on a
weekly base by a niece of Zee, Martha Zwagerman.
This student-of-medicine worked as a courier from
Leiden, being the daughter of an official of the
Zeeland Dairy Board. At first, it was Jasper Jobse, a
staff-drawer to an engineers-office, who oversaw the
manufacturing and distribution from his house in the
Eigenhaardstraat.
After Cor Zee's arrest mid-March 1944, Jobse fled
to the Hague to avoid his imminent arrest. Printing-
matters were handed over to Dies Boone, another
administrator at the Dairy Board. Gerard Holster,
assisted by Dries le Due, now typed and stenciled the
weekly Chronicle from an attic in the Lange Geere.
Holster had been a soldier during the Maydays of
1940, and was in shelter to avoid becoming a
Prisoner-of-War (PoW). His shelter was with Dries le
Due, an employee of Bank van der Meer, who also got
involved with the manufacturing of CW. The printing-
paper used to circulate the 'Chronicle of the Week' was
illegally acquired from the stock of the regional news
paper, the Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant, or PZC as it is
known throughout Zeeland.
The distribution was done partly via mail, partly
through personal contacts, and partly by circulating it
around Middelburg and vicinity. It was a one-sheet
Folio, although during the last period, copies could be
two sheets of paper. The paper, carrying the sub-caption
'Freedom is not for sale' appeared two consecutive
years, the last edition being 2nd Annual, number 16,
of 16th November 1944. After the Liberation of
Walcheren, the grounds for its existence ceased to be.
De Vrije Zeeuw or 'The Free Zeeuw' took over the legal
news feed. The news-items were a digest of the Allied
radiobroadcasts. There was a weekly military-political
analysis by 'Diplomaticus', the Leiden-student and
instigator J.M. van Stralen. After the events of
September 1944 had caused the contacts between
Middelburg and Leiden to be severed, they printed
the 'political weekly review' of Radio Orange, as was
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12 Zeeuws Tijdschrift 2004/6-7
