![]() In Fresnes she was treated well, but when this ploy did not work, she was shipped to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. She was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned at the Fresnes prison in Paris, because it was hoped for that her comrades would try to free her. The name of Jean's sister Gabrielle Weidner was among the names listed in the notepad. As a result, a large number of Dutch-Paris members were arrested (See more details in Suzanne Hiltermann-Souloumiac). Under torture she revealed many names of key members of the underground network. She was brutally interrogated by a guard that held her head under cold water until she nearly drowned. Against all rules, she had a notebook with her containing names and addresses of Dutch-Paris members. In February 1944, a young female courier was arrested by the French police and extradited to the Gestapo. Jean was one of the most sought after underground leaders of France, for whom the Gestapo at one time offered a reward of five million francs for his arrest. ![]() The escape route has greatly contributed to the French Resistance, and is responsible for the rescue of more than 1,080 people, including 800 Dutch Jews and more than 112 downed Allied pilots. 40 people were slain or died from the effects of captivity, including his sister who helped to coordinate escapes from Paris. In its heyday, 300 people were part of this underground network, of which about 150 people were arrested. In the Netherlands this message line was also known as "The Swiss Way". This escape route was also used for smuggling documents. In order to get passes to go in and out of the Swiss frontier zone, he set up a second textile shop in Annecy at the end of 1942.ĭutch-Paris became one of the largest and most successful underground networks for people persecuted for faith or race, Allied pilots, and persons of great Dutch importance to help them escape via Switzerland and Spain. In 1941, Jean founded " Dutch-Paris", an underground network of which the location of his Lyonnaise textile business soon became its headquarters. Because he had to abandon his Parisian business, he began a new business in Lyon. With the subsequent German occupation of France he fled with several others from Paris to Lyon in the unoccupied part of France. To his father's regret, he decided to go into business, and in 1935 he established a textile import/export business in Paris, France.Īround this time he went to Geneva to attend sessions of the League of Nations, and saw firsthand how ineffective that body was in preventing the outbreak of war in 1939.Īt the outbreak of World War II Jean was living in Paris. who studied at the University of Geneva, and had been a minister for the Seventh-day Adventists in Brussels and Switzerland, hoped Jean would follow in his footsteps. He was the eldest of four children, and grew up in Switzerland, near the French border at Collonges-sous-Salève - a village in the French department of Haute-Savoie, where his father taught Latin and Greek at the Seventh-day Adventist Church seminary.įollowing his education at French public schools, he attended basic courses at the Seventh-day Adventist Seminary in Collonges-sous-Salève. Although his birth name was Johan Hendrik, he used to call himself "Jean" and later in the U.S., "John". A.Johan Hendrik Weidner (October 22, 1912, Brussels, Belgium - May 21, 1994, Monterey Park, California, United States) was a highly decorated Dutch hero of World War II. as comrades in a common human cause." – W. And it was because of this dimension of John’s life that he, a Seventh-day Adventist, and I, the Reformed pastor, regarded ourselves. he had that directness, that simplicity of faith, which made him realize that he was at all times in the hands of a loving God. "Why was it that John accepted all these risks so readily?. His answer was brief and to the point: "They were God’s children they were human beings.’" – Haskell L. "I asked John Weidner why he had risked his life repeatedly to save so many. ![]() Others with less moral fortitude may have closed their eyes to the brutality about them, but Weidner refused to be cowed, and so braved imprisonment and torture for his humanitarian efforts. John Henry Weidner, a hero of history’s greatest holocaust, saved the lives of 800 Jews, more than 100 Allied aviators, and many others who fled the nightmare of Nazism. he gave us the courage we needed,Īnd above all, he became the living symbol of a man devoted to his fellow man." " He saved my parents he saved my life he saved the livesīut he did more.
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