85 years ago, the first Newsletter by Pieter ‘t Hoen was published, the predecessor of Het Parool

July 25, 2025, marks exactly 85 years since the first issue of Pieter ’t Hoen’s newsletter was published. Under that pseudonym, journalist Frans Goedhart wrote uncensored accounts of the occupying forces, which had invaded the Netherlands a little less than three months earlier.

To mark this 85th anniversary, *Het Parool*—which succeeded the newsletter in 1941—and SDM are publishing a series of profiles of key figures who kept the resistance newspaper running. This is not only to keep the memory of the past alive, but also to emphasize the contemporary importance of a free press.

Read the profiles of:

• Frans Goedhart (1904–1990), who continued his journalistic work even while in prison
• Wim van Norden (1917–2015) had already begun thinking at an early stage about how the underground newspaper *Het Parool* could continue to exist after the war
• Max Nord (1916–2008), the poet who became a journalist because of the war
• Simon Carmiggelt (1913–1987) was involved with the resistance newspaper *Het Parool* from the very beginning
• Emmy Andriesse (1914–1953), the photographer who captured the little boy with a pan in front of his stomach
• Jaap Nunes Vaz (1906–1943), who was fired the day after the Dutch surrender, was one of the founding journalists of *Het Parool*
• Kees de Groot (1913–1945), whom the Germans executed without knowing that he was the *Parool* staff member they had been searching for for years
• Jet Roosenburg (1916–1972), the woman who was erased from the history books

Are you also curious about Pieter ’t Hoen’s newsletter? You can read the very first issue, dated July 25, 1940, here.