Resistance Men identified after 70 years
The resistance men Nicolaas van der Horst and Nicholas Corstanje have after 70 years their name again: both men were in World War II executed by the Nazis and buried anonymously in unnamed graves.
Now they have been identified by DNA and and end is put to the uncertainty of their relatives, police reported Thursday.
The remains of the two men were identified after study by the 'Working Group on Missing Persons WWII'. The Dutch Forensic Institute did the DNA relationship testing.
Detective work of a private investigator to the fate of Van der Horst led to an unmarked war grave in Hoofddorp which was recently opened. A cousin of Van der Horst gave DNA samples to compare.
Born in Goes, Corstanje worked during the war as a clerk in The Hague. In October 1944 he was arrested for resistance activities and shot. He was shot and buried at the Waalsdorpervlakte at The Hague and was reburried later in Leusden in a nameless grave. His DNA was compared with that of his sister, who is now 88.
The Germans arrested Van der Horst in 1942 for espionage. The advertising-consultant from Amsterdam was 29. A firing squad ended his live at Schiphol on February 1943.