The sculptor Gerrit (Jan) van der Veen had been a fierce opponent of National Socialism before the war. During the war he became a prominent resistance leader. He was the brain behind the Persoonsbewijzen Centrale (PBC), and it was he who led the attack on Amsterdam’s population register in March 1943. After a failed attack on the prison on Weteringschans in 1944, he was arrested and killed by a firing squad in Overveen.
Gerrit van der Veen wrote the famous lines of poetry that may be rendered:
'What will you do, now your country, trampled and enslaved,
Bleeds from its countless wounds;
What will you do, now your people are robbed of rights and unmanned
By the black and field-grey hounds?'
For more information, see the website (in Dutch) of the Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis.