Cato Bontjes van Beek
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
member of the resistance against the Nazi regime
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
.
Early years
Born in Fischerhude near Bremen, Cato was the eldest of three children. She spent her childhoodChildhood
Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence. In developmental psychology, childhood is divided up into the developmental stages of toddlerhood , early childhood , middle childhood , and adolescence .- Age ranges of childhood :The term childhood is non-specific and can imply a...
and youth in the Worpswede
Worpswede
Worpswede is a municipality in the district of Osterholz, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Teufelsmoor, northeast of Bremen. The small town itself is located near the Weyerberg hill. It has been the home to a lively artistic community since the end of the 19th century, with over 130...
/Fischerhude artists' colony near Bremen. Cato's parents, potter
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
Jan Bontjes van Beek and dancer and painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
Olga Bontjes van Beek (née Breling) offered their children no material wealth, but rather an abundance of artistic and mental stimulation, which had a decisive effect on the children. The family's political leanings were unequivocally anti-fascist. Cato did not join the Bund Deutscher Mädel. In 1939, Helmut Schmidt
Helmut Schmidt
Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt is a German Social Democratic politician who served as Chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Prior to becoming chancellor, he had served as Minister of Defence and Minister of Finance. He had also served briefly as Minister of Economics and as acting...
, who would become chancellor of Western Germany thirty years later, was stationed in Vegesack for his military service. During this time he had an intense friendship with Tim and Cato Bontjes van Beek and their families. Schmidt eventually broke off this friendship because of their contacts with the Red Orchestra resistance group.
From 1940 on, Cato and her sister Mietje lived with their father in Berlin, where he had moved in 1933 in the hopes of spreading his artistic work. They met friends at their father's house who opposed the Nazi regime. Cato also learned her father's craft, and caused her schoolteacher some problems by being a bit outspoken, and this at a time when the Nazis had just come to power. "Children," he had intoned, even though he was not a Party member, "one cannot swim against the current." Cato retorted, "But we can!"
And she did, as did Mietje.
Both sisters saw the wrong that the Nazis inflicted upon others, were affected by it, and tried to help. Beginning in 1941, this included giving humanitarian aid to French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
prisoners of war. Both Cato and Mietje would go to the Lehrter Bahnhof, the railway terminal where the prisoners were often to be found, to hand out cigarette
Cigarette
A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
s and match
Match
A match is a tool for starting a fire under controlled conditions. A typical modern match is made of a small wooden stick or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by frictional heat generated by striking the match against a suitable surface...
es, exchange letters, and give the prisoners gifts of soap
Soap
In chemistry, soap is a salt of a fatty acid.IUPAC. "" Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. . Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford . XML on-line corrected version: created by M. Nic, J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN...
and glove
Glove
A glove is a garment covering the hand. Gloves have separate sheaths or openings for each finger and the thumb; if there is an opening but no covering sheath for each finger they are called "fingerless gloves". Fingerless gloves with one large opening rather than individual openings for each...
s. The girls were well aware of the dangers of doing such things, but they wanted to bring a measure of humanity, however small, to National Socialism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
.
Resistance activities
Cato Bontjes van Beek's active work against the Nazis began in the Red Orchestra resistance organization after she had gotten to know Libertas Schulze-BoysenLibertas Schulze-Boysen
Libertas Schulze-Boysen, born Libertas Viktoria Haas-Heye was a German opponent of the Nazis who belonged to the Red Orchestra resistance group during the Third Reich.- Early years :Schulze-Boysen spent her childhood at her grandfather's estate Philip, Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld...
. After this group was broken up, she undertook further action together with Heinz Strelow. She printed and distributed illegal writings and leaflets which sought to arouse readers to the struggle and resistance against the Nazis' reign of terror. Van Beek's struggle ended with her arrest by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
on 20 September 1942 in her father's pottery shop in Berlin. On 18 January 1943, she was found guilty at the Reichskriegsgericht ("Reich Military Tribunal
Military tribunal
A military tribunal is a kind of military court designed to try members of enemy forces during wartime, operating outside the scope of conventional criminal and civil proceedings. The judges are military officers and fulfill the role of jurors...
") of "abetting a conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
to commit high treason
High treason
High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...
" and sentenced to death. She was guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
d on 5 August 1943 at Plötzensee
Plötzensee
Plötzensee is a small glacial lake in Berlin. It is situated near the Rehberge public park in the former borough of Wedding, now a part of Mitte. The name stems from Plötze, one name for the roach in German, as the lake formerly teemed with it....
Prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
Cato's younger sister Mietje Bontjes van Beek managed to escape Nazi persecution, despite her activities, and is still alive and living in Fischerhude as of 2008.
Places named after Cato Bontjes van Beek
A Gymnasium in Achim
Achim
Achim is a municipality and the largest town in the district of Verden, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Weser, approx. 17 km northwest of Verden, and 16 km southeast of Bremen. The mayor is Uwe Kellner.-Geography:Achim lies in a valley of the Weser...
, a town near Bremen, has since 1991 borne the name Cato Bontjes van Beek-Gymnasium. A street in nearby Fischerhude also bears her name, and an explanatory notice. Both these places are in the Verden
Verden (district)
Verden is a Kreis in the centre of Lower Saxony, Germany. Adjoining it are the districts of Osterholz, Rotenburg, Heidekreis, Nienburg and Diepholz, as well as the city of Bremen.-Geography:...
district.
Literature
Hermann Vinke: Cato Bontjes van Beek. 'Ich habe nicht um mein Leben gebettelt'. Ein Porträt ("I Did Not Beg for my Life"; A Portrait). Zürich, Hamburg 2003: Arche. ISBN 3-7160-2313-2Heidelore Kluge: Cato Bontjes van beek. 'Ich will nur eins sein und das ist ein Mensch'. (I only want to be one thing - and that's a Human.) Stuttgart 1995: Urachhaus. ISBN 3-8251-7003-9
External links
- Brief biography (Ger.) and another picture
- Site about the artist's colony where Cato Bontjes van Beek was from