- Anton de Kom
Cornelis Gerard Anton de Kom (
22 February 1898 –24 April 1945 ) was aSuriname se resistance fighter and anti-colonialist author.Biography
De Kom was born in
Paramaribo to farmer Adolf de Kom and Judith Jacoba Dulder. His father was born a slave. As was not uncommon, his surname is a reversal of the slave owner's name, who was called "Mok".De Kom finished primary and secondary school and obtained a diploma in bookkeeping. He worked for the "Balata Compagnieën Suriname en Guyana". On
29 July 1920 he resigned and left forHaiti where he worked for the "Societé Commerciale Hollandaise Transatlantique". In 1921 he left forthe Netherlands . He volunteered for the "Huzaren" (a Dutchcavalry regiment ) for a year. In 1922 he started working for a consultancy inThe Hague . One year later he was laid off due to a reorganization. He then became a sales representative selling coffee, tea and tobacco for a company in The Hague, where he met his future wife. In addition to his work, he was active in numerous left-wing organizations, including nationalist Indonesian student organisations and "Links Richten" (Aim Left).De Kom and his family left for
Suriname on20 December 1932 and arrived on4 January 1933 . From that moment on he was closely watched by the colonial authorities. He started a consultancy in his parents' house. OnFebruary 1 he was arrested while en route to the governor's office with a large group of followers. Both onFebruary 3 and the day after, his followers gathered in front of theAttorney General 's office to demand De Kom's release. OnFebruary 7 , a large crowd gathered on the Oranjeplein (currently called the Onafhankelijkheidsplein). Rumor had it that De Kom was about to be released. When the crowd refused to leave the square, police opened fire, killing two people and wounding 30.On
May 10 , De Kom was sent toThe Netherlands without trial and exiled from his native country. He was unemployed and continued writing his book, "Wij slaven van Suriname" (We Slaves of Suriname) which was published in a censored form in 1934. De Kom participated in demonstrations for the unemployed, traveled abroad with a group as a tap dancer, and was drafted for "Werkverschaffing" (unemployment relief work), a program similar to the American WPA, in 1939. He gave lectures for leftist groups, mainlycommunists , aboutcolonialism andracial discrimination .After the German invasion in 1940, De Kom joined the Dutch resistance, especially the communist party in
The Hague . He wrote articles for the underground paper "De Vonk" of the communist party, mainly about the terror offascist groups in the streets of The Hague (much of their terror was directed againstJews ). On7 August 1944 , he was arrested. He was imprisoned at the Oranje Hotel inScheveningen , and transferred to "CampVught ", a Dutchconcentration camp . In early September 1944 he was sent toOranienburg-Sachsenhausen , where he was forced to work for theHeinkel aircraft factory. De Kom died on24 April 1945 oftuberculosis in Camp Sandbostel nearBremervörde (between Bremen and Hamburg), which was a satellite camp of concentration campNeuengamme . He was buried in amass grave . In 1960, his remains were found and brought to the Netherlands. They were buried in the Cemetery of Honour in Loenen.De Kom was married to a Dutch woman, Petronella Borsboom. They had four children. Their son Cees de Kom lives in Suriname.
The University of Suriname was renamed The
Anton de Kom University of Suriname in honour of De Kom.Anton de Kom was listed in
De Grootste Nederlander (The Greatest Dutchman/Dutchwoman) as #102 out of 202 people.In
Amsterdam Zuidoost a square is named after him, the "Anton de Kom plein". It features a sculpture of Anton de Kom as a monument to his life and works, sculpted by Jikke van Loon.Written work
* Anton de Kom: "Wij slaven van Suriname" (1934; uncensored edition 1971). English translation: "We Slaves of Surinam", 1987 (Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan).
External links
* [http://www.antondekom.nl/ antondekom.nl] website devoted to the Anton de Kom square and monument.
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