Roodenburgh, Pieter Arnold, born.14-03-1918, in Watergraafsmeer, Noord-Holland, Netherlands, 
to Jordanus Roodenburgh and his wife Alida Cornelia, born van de Koppel. Brother Bartholomeus was born almost five years earlier. Pieter is a well-known name in Amsterdam. Father Daan is an architect and in the early thirties he designs Ajax stadium ‘De Meer’ on the Middenweg, 
which will remain the home base for the Amsterdam football club until 1996. The webmaster is a fan of the Amsterdam Club Ajax. Pieter is an aspirant at Ajax, but his preference ultimately goes to hockey. Pieter starts playing hockey for Amsterdam. At the club, for which he plays a total of seven seasons in the Men’s 1 team and becomes national champion in 1938, the fast right winger grows into an international. Roodenburgh makes his debut on 24-04-1938 in Lille against France when he replaces Eugene Kanters, also a newcomer to the Dutch national team. Kanters has been hit in the stomach by a ball in the first half and cannot continue.Between 1938 and 1940 Roodenburgh plays eight international matches at a time when countries play fewer international matches than they do today. He is praised by the magazine Hockey Sport for his virtuoso play, but is ‘insufficiently productive’. In his seventh international match Roodenburgh does manage to find the net. 
He scores twice in the 3-0 victory over Belgium. In addition to hockey, Roodenburgh studied chemistry at the University of Amsterdam. 
When he was about to graduate in 1943, he refused to sign the declaration of loyalty required by the German occupiers. In this declaration, students declared that they agreed to ‘refrain from any action directed against the German Reich, the ‘Wehrmacht’ or the Dutch authorities’. Anyone who refused could no longer continue their studies and risked being sent to work in Germany.
Pieter tries to flee to free England. When that fails, he flees to neutral Switzerland. After a hellish journey in which he nearly dies in a snowstorm, he comes into contact with General Aleid Gerhard Van Tricht. 
Aleid Gerhard van Tricht (Arnhem, 04-01-1886 – The Hague, 11-05-1969) was a Dutch professional soldier with the rank of lieutenant general This military attaché maintains contact with espionage groups in the Netherlands via the so-called Swiss Route. This route transports valuable intelligence, microfilms, espionage messages and people to England via Switzerland. In total, Van Tricht dealt with approximately 750 refugees, of whom about 250 went on to England.
In London, the Dutch government of Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy 
is in exile and wants to know what is happening in the fatherland. Roodenburgh, who starts working as a courier, smuggles data from the V1, 
the German rocket system, to Switzerland. On these life-threatening journeys, the documents and microfilms are sewn into the seams of clothing or hidden in shoes. After the Allied invasion on 06-06-1944, 
courier services via Switzerland are no longer possible. Roodenburgh joins the Amsterdam resistance group, a resistance organization that raids distribution offices, employment agencies and population registers to obtain, among other things, distribution coupons and identity cards.
Roodenburgh is involved in weapons drops and he transports weapons by potato barge. Pieter is put in charge of the Internal Control Service, which collects data on NSB 
members and agents of the Sicherheitsdienst. In that capacity, Roodenburgh comes into contact with Willem (Wim) Christiaan Heinrich Henneicke. 
Henneicke (Amsterdam, 19-03-1909 – idem, 08-12-1944) was a Dutch collaborator in World War II. He is best known for the Colonne Henneicke named after him, which hunted down Jews. That ultimately proves fatal for him. Henneicke collaborates with the occupier and is also a member of the Sicherheitspolizei. Roodenburgh is betrayed by Henneicke. On 17-11-1944 Pieter is arrested and transferred to the House of Detention on the Weteringschans in Amsterdam. 
Henneicke’s father was German and after Mad Tuesday he approached the underground and provided them with information about the Sicherheitsdienst. He probably tried to get into their good books to avoid prosecution after the war. However, Henneicke, aged 35, did not live to see that liberation, because on 08-12-1944 an unknown member of the underground shot him dead on the Hogeweg near his home in Amsterdam.After the war, the Amsterdam justice department received information that Henneicke’s widow was receiving two hundred guilders in support per month from the former resistance. This was confirmed within the underground, because Henneicke did indeed provide useful information.
Death and burial ground of Roodenburgh, Pieter Arnold.
Roodenburgh, age 26, is put on the list of Todeskandidaten. It is a new measure by the Germans in the final days of the war to empty the prisons and relieve the courts. People on this list are shot dead by the occupier without trial in retaliation for an action of the resistance in public and at the location of the relevant act of resistance. Bystanders are forced to watch these executions. As a deterrent example, the bodies are left there for 24 hours or longer.
A little less than a month after his arrest, Roodenburgh and two other random resistance fighters are taken from prison. The Zaan resistance had blown up an ammunition train near the Uitgeest railway a month earlier. The three Ger de Beer 
age 27, Piet Ouwerkerk, 
age 31 and Pieter, age 26, are shot at the location where this attack took place on 15-12-1944. 
The bodies are buried in a collective grave in the dunes near Overveen, and later reburied to the cemetery of honor Bloemendaal in Overveen.
After the war, Hockey Sport reported Roodenburgh’s death: ‘(…), the right winger of the Dutch national team, who emerged as a true hero, who rendered great services to the country and was finally executed through betrayal (…). We will remember this fine sportsman with gratitude.’ In 1949, Roodenburgh was posthumously awarded the Bronze Lion for his ‘very important services (…) to the Allied war effort and the Dutch Government.’ His final resting place is at the honorary cemetery in Overveen. His gravestone bears the text: ‘Freedom of the spirit transcends time and death.’
Leave a Reply