Part 1: The wartime resistance chronology

1938: Willem & Martha visit the Rhineland

1939: Willem & Martha visit Scotland; they return with Archie Scott who stays with the family for a few days

1939: Willem rents a house in Citroenstraat in The Hague. Douwe marries

1939 September 29th: War is declared between Germany and Britain, and WWII begins

1940 May: Germany invades Holland. Rotterdam city centre is destroyed by bombing and the Netherlands surrenders

1940 December: Secret room is completed

1942 September: Salomon (Piet) and Lien Hekscher arrive at the Okmas’ door

1942 October: Joop and Bep van Gelderen brought to the Okmas by Piet Brakel

1942 November: Little Bram (Jantje) Hekscher is dropped off on the Okmas’ doorstep

1943 July 15th: Kurt (Chris) Lewin avoids a raid and scrambles into the house via a roof window

1943 July 28th: Gommert (Kees) Krijger arrives

1943 October: The house is searched by the Gestapo

1944 January: Kieks gets engaged and starts courier work for the Resistance

1944 February: Willem & Diny, Trijntje & Dirk get married

1944 August: Kieks leaves Citroenstraat and goes to Douwe at Hillegom near Haarlem

1944 September 5th: Dolle Dinsdag – Mad Tuesday, when many Dutch people openly celebrate victory by the Allies and collaborators flee to Germany. Resistance workers forced to go into hiding afterwards

1944 September 17th: Allies parachute into Arnhem

1944 October 25th: Kees assassinates the police inspector

1944 November: Kieks discovers that Kees had been in the Waffen SS

1944 December: Kieks goes up to Leeuwarden; an attack by her cousin causes her to avoid a Gestapo trap

1945 January: Kieks is captured in the countryside, and escapes with ‘a roll in the snow’

1945 May 5th: Germany surrenders and WWII ends