Jan Campert

Jan Campert

Memorial for Jan Campert by Helen Ferdinand, Spijkenisse.
text reads:
A cell is barely two meter long
and little two meter wide
smaller though, is the plot of land,
I do not know as yet,
but where I will rest in anonymity,
like me my friends,
we were eighteen all together,
none will see the dawn.

Jan Remco Theodoor Campert (Spijkenisse, August 15, 1902 – January 12, 1943)^[1] was a journalist, theater critic and writer who lived in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. During the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II Campert was arrested for aiding the Jews. He was held in the Neuengamme concentration camp, where he died.

Campert is best known for his poem "De achttien dooden" ("The Eighteen Dead"), describing the execution of 18 resistance workers (15 resistance fighters and 3 communists) by the German occupier. Written in 1941 and based on an account published in Het Parool, the poem was clandestinely published in 1943 as a poetry card ("rijmprent") by what would become publishing house De Bezige Bij^[2] to raise money to hide Jewish children.

He was the father of novelist and poet Remco Campert.

References

1. DBNL auteur – Jan Campert
2. Hubben, Hub. (May 14, 2004). "Illegaal was beter dan clandestien". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 2009-07-21.