On May 10, 1940, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands, claiming without evidence that Britain and France were planning to attack through Dutch and Belgian territory. German paratroopers seized key positions as ground forces pushed across the country, and devastating air raids destroyed Rotterdam’s historic center on May 14. Facing the same threat against Utrecht, the Dutch army surrendered the following day. The occupation quickly brought anti-Jewish measures.
Jewish citizens were excluded from public life, their businesses were registered, and their assets were seized. In January 1941, all Jews were required to register, and by April 1942, wearing the yellow Star of David was mandatory. Systematic deportations of Dutch Jews to extermination camps began in July 1942. Over roughly two years, about 107,000 Dutch Jews were deported, and the vast majority were murdered.
Jan Feron was born in Amsterdam on August 13, 1919, the third of ten children in a devout Catholic family. As a child, he decided to dedicate his life to God and entered a seminary, but after three years he was told he was not suited for the priesthood. He then turned to the military, spending six months doing stretching exercises to gain the half centimeter needed to meet the height requirement. When war broke out in September 1939, Feron was serving in the Dutch army, carrying his books in his knapsack and studying between postings.
He was stationed with seven other soldiers in a casemate at the Westervoort bridge near Arnhem. In the early hours of May 10, 1940, the phone rang with the news that German forces had crossed the border. Feron volunteered as a scout and crawled forward with his rifle, carrying a letter from his father that read: “God forbid that it should happen, but if the Germans set their heavy boot in our fatherland, then repent your sins and do not hesitate to fight. ” He spotted German soldiers preparing to cross the river in rubber boats and opened fire, hitting one boat before a bullet tore into his upper arm.
Believing he might die, Feron made a vow to God: if he survived, he would devote his life to liberating the Netherlands from German occupation. He was evacuated to a hospital, treated, and later returned to Amsterdam. On the train home, Feron met a man active in the underground who introduced him to the CS6 resistance group, named after their base at Corellistraat 6 in Amsterdam. Feron went underground under the aliases George Devich and Max Brinkhorst.
He trained with weapons, carried out sabotage, forged stamps for false identity papers, organized attacks on rationing offices, and helped Jews go into hiding. He took part in setting fire to the Rembrandt Theater, where Nazi propaganda films were shown and German soldiers gathered. He also attempted to burn down the Hollandsche Schouwburg, a former Jewish theater that the Germans had turned into a deportation center for Amsterdam’s Jews. Another target was the employment office in the Bazar de Sade building, where forced labor deportations were organized.
At the end of October 1942, Feron and nine others raided the police headquarters in Utrecht and freed a captured resistance fighter, who survived the war. On February 5, 1943, Feron and fellow resistance member Kees Kastelein carried out the assassination of retired General Hendrik Seyffardt, commander of the Dutch SS Volunteer Legion and minister of war in the collaborationist cabinet. Seyffardt, shot twice, died the following day. German authorities responded by executing 18 prominent Dutchmen as hostages.
Kastelein was later arrested and died by suicide during interrogation. Feron then became the leader of CS6. On June 3, 1943, he assassinated another member of the collaborationist shadow cabinet at his home in Voorst. These actions made Feron a target for the Germans, but they also weighed heavily on him.
Raised in a devout Catholic family, he struggled with the killings and at times returned secretly to his parents’ home, where he confided in his sister. She later published a book preserving his story, revealing a young man torn between faith, morality, and the brutal necessities of armed resistance. On November 4, 1943, Feron was betrayed—allegedly by the fiancée of a fellow CS6 member—and arrested in Amsterdam by ten men of the SD, the SS intelligence service. He was taken to their headquarters and brutally tortured.
Despite being handcuffed to a bed, he managed to write farewell letters on toilet paper, which a sympathetic guard smuggled out. In one letter he wrote that although he had hoped after the war to have stars on his collar, he would now have as many stars as he wanted. On January 6, 1944, Feron was tried and sentenced to death. The next day, at age 24, he was executed by firing squad and buried in an anonymous grave.
On November 24, 1945, a memorial plaque for Feron and a fellow parishioner was unveiled at the Roman Catholic Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Amsterdam. The sculpture shows a mother raising her sword against a snake, a symbol of the fight against evil.
It remains a reminder of his sacrifice and of the price paid by all who resisted Nazi tyranny.
