Poncke Princen

Johannes Cornelis Princen (21 November 1925 – 2 February 2002), also known as Poncke Princen, was a Dutch anti-Nazi fighter and activist.

In 1939, he entered the Holy Ghost Seminary at Weert – where he was followed by his younger brother Kees Princen, with whom he was to maintain correspondence throughout his life.

It was while he was at the seminary that Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the Netherlands in 1940.

Princen did not become a priest.

In 1942, at age 17, he was accepted as an economic counselor at Teppemaand Vargroup Groothandel voor Chemische Producten, a chemical company in The Hague.

He did not keep this position for long, either, being determined to take up arms against the Nazi occupiers of the Netherlands.

In 1943, Princen was arrested by the German occupation authorities in Maastricht, while trying to travel to Spain – from where he intended to travel to Britain and enlist in an Allied army fighting the Nazis.

He was convicted by the occupation authorities of "attempting to aid the enemy" and in early 1944 was sent to the notorious Vught Camp.

On June 6, 1944, he was transferred to the Kriegswehrmachtgefängnis (Wehrmacht military prison) at Utrecht.

While there, he entertained fellow prisoners by reading aloud chapters from a favorite book, Pastoor Poncke ("Pastor Poncke") by Jan Eekhout.

This led to his nickname of "Poncke", which he was to keep for the rest of his life.

He was transferred to the prison camp at Amersfoort and from there to Beckum, Germany.

Before being liberated by the arrival of Allied forces, he had passed through seven Nazi prisons and camps.

Directly upon being freed from Nazi imprisonment, Princen joined the Stoottroepen Regiment Brabant (Brabant Stormtroop Regiment), based in the southern Dutch province of North Brabant.

In 1945, he worked for the newly founded Bureau voor Nationale Veiligheid (Bureau of National Security nl:Bureau Nationale Veiligheid), forerunner of the Dutch Security Service – at the time mainly involved in hunting down collaborators and war criminals, but also keeping under surveillance those natives of the Dutch Indies, resident in the Netherlands, who were sympathetic with the rebellion against Dutch rule that was spreading in their homeland.

In March 1946, Princen was called up to join the ranks of the Royal Netherlands Army and take part in what Dutch histories still call "Police Actions" (politionele acties) but which became better known as the Indonesian National Revolution.

Reluctant to take part in the war, Princen fled to France – but upon hearing that his mother was ill, came back and was arrested by the Marechaussee and detained at Schoonhoven.

On December 28, 1946, he was put on board the troop ship Sloterdijk.

Also aboard the Sloterdijk was the Communist Piet van Staveren, likewise a reluctant conscript who would eventually desert and join the Indonesian rebels.

Both of them did meet during the trip and sharing their anti-colonial ideas.

When he arrived in the Indies, Princen was charged with desertion.

On 22 October 1947, he was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment for desertion, but he was returned to active service after four months at the Tjisaroea Prison Camp, the remainder of his sentence being suspended.

He was increasingly unhappy with the haughty and contemptuous attitude of fellow soldiers to the local population, and he was present at some violent incidents which greatly increased his disaffection.

As he many years later explained, "An adolescence under Nazi rule and two years in German imprisonment has directed my life and made me fight against cruelty. I thought the Indonesians were right. I thought they should be the ones to decide their own future. (...) I was disgusted with the Dutch killing people I admired".

In 1948, he deserted the Dutch military, joining the Indonesian independence guerrillas in what was then the Dutch Indies.

He lived the rest of his life in Indonesia, where he became a prominent human rights activist and political dissident under various dictatorial regimes and consequently spent time in detention.

Princen and his three siblings were the children of free-thinking parents with anarchist tendencies.

His great-grandfather had been a deserter from military service, who had long been chased by the authorities and whose life was described in a book by Anton Coolen.

Despite his upbringing, Princen conceived an interest in Catholicism under the influence grandmother, Theresia Princen-Van der Lee.

In January 1948, the United Nations brokered a fragile cease-fire, but almost immediately both sides violated the truce in multiple incidents and the Dutch forces made preparations for a new operation against the rebel forces.

It was at this time, while being on leave at Sukabumi, that Princen crossed the Line of Demarcation into rebel-held territory, and via Semarang reached Yogyakarta, the provisional capital of the self-proclaimed Indonesian Republic – where the suspicious Indonesian nationalists threw him into prison.

In December 1948, the Dutch army launched Operation Kraai (Dutch for "Crow"), captured Yogyakarta, and imprisoned Sukarno and other most nationalist leaders.

During the assault upon the provisional capital, the nationalist rebels released Princen from their prison and gave him the chance to enlist in the Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI, Indonesian Republican Forces).

When he joined them, the pro-independence forces' fortunes seemed at their nadir, with their political leadership captured and most of the territory of Indonesia under a re-established Dutch military rule.

They conducted an intensive guerrilla campaign and gained considerable international sympathy and support.

Princen was fully committed to his new cause, seeing front-line service under Kemal Idris and taking part in the fighting retreat of the Siliwangi Division under then-Colonel A. H. Nasution, from Central Java to "guerrilla cantons" established in West Java – an action which came to be known as the Long March Siliwangi (derived from the famed Long March of Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party).

He was appointed staff officer in the Second Brigade of Grup Purwakarta, active in the environs of the city of Purwakarta.

On one occasion in the beginning of August 1949, Dutch troops shot Princen's wife Odah, with Princen narrowly avoiding being killed.

When asked in a press interview many years later "Did you actually shoot at Dutch soldiers? Did you kill some of them?"

he answered forthrightly "Yes, I did."