Some rowed across the North Sea in rickety boats. Others made their way north through Scandinavia, south through Europe or even went halfway around the world. The thing that united these 2,150 brave Dutchmen and women was that during the Nazi occupation of World War II, they made their way to England – and joined the war effort.

A new project has literally mapped the journeys of the Engelandvaarders, or “England voyagers”, as these intrepid travellers are known.

Thanks to the efforts of the Dutch National Archive, the W02NET foundation, dozens of volunteers and almost 35,000 scanned documents from all over Europe, these journeys have for the first time been united so that their extraordinary stories can be told.

“The Engelandvaarders fought for justice, freedom, peace and against injustice and those elements even today remain extremely important,” said Paul Bartelings, director of the Museum Engelandvaarders in Noordwijk, whose father and uncle were both part of this group.

“Children come to our museum, many of them don’t know what happened but they are really interested in these stories. What would you do in certain situations that are critical and difficult? How do you make the right choices? It is very important for the younger generation to keep these stories alive.”

Unlock history

At a packed event in The Hague in March, descendants of the England voyagers, volunteers and history enthusiasts heard more about the massive effort to map and collate these tales.

Pepijn Lucker, project leader from the Dutch National Archive, said that although the romantic idea was of people boating straight to the Dutch government in exile across the Channel, this was not always the case. “They certainly didn’t all go directly across the North Sea,” he said.

“This was about Dutch people who left the occupied area and went to England with the goal of contributing to the Allied war effort. Our aim was to unlock as much of the National Archive as possible for the normal visitor as well as professional researchers.”

When people, including 68 women, arrived in England, they were first questioned by British secret services and then by the Dutch side to ensure that they could be trusted. The documents that have been united to categorise their stories and routes include diplomatic papers, police and secret service reports, personal letters and all kinds of European documents.

Cornelis, or Kees, Wolters for instance managed to get to Portugal then – because he had skills in airport runways – was sent to Gibraltar then Plymouth and asked to help. Filmmaker Gerard Rutten managed to get an official visa to film in Spain, escaped to the UK and eventually got a job with the Dutch royal family in exile.

His son, actor and singer Edwin Rutter, had gone to the archive to look up his father’s story and was fascinated by the Engelandvaarders project. “It is lovely that so many questions can now be answered,” he told the conference.

Some of the stories of these resistance fighters are already well known. The successful book, film and musical The Soldier of Orange is based on the story of England voyager Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema. Fighter pilot Bram van der Stok was one of the few who made it to England twice, managing to escape from Stalag Luft III in a prison break made famous in the film, The Great Escape.

Holocaust 

While the Netherlands is coming to terms with less celebrated aspects of its Holocaust history – such as bureaucratic collusion and looking away while the Nazis murdered 102,000 Jewish people – the significance of the resistance movement remains strong.

Wenja van der Meulen, who said that her father made a similar journey, told Dutch News it was important to remember stories of wartime bravery. “These were people who put their lives on the line and this is a recognition of what they did,” she said. “Hero is a beautiful word.”

Lizzy Jongma, senior project leader at Stichting WO2NET, said the searchable archive and reconstructions of the most popular journeys were an important addition to the body of knowledge on Dutch war history. “We hope to give these people a face, and a life,” she said, “but it is a huge jigsaw puzzle.”