Jaap penraat biography

Jaap Penraat (April 11, 1918 – June 25, 2006) was a Dutch resistance fighter during the Second World War. Jaap Penraat.
Jaap Penraat, an architect and industrial designer who saved 406 Jews in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands by forging false documents and taking them to safety.
Jaap Penraat (1918-2006), designer.

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Jaap Penraat

Dutch resistance fighter (1918–2006)

Jaap Penraat (April 11, 1918 – June 25, 2006) was a Dutch resistance fighter during the Second World War.^[1]

Life

Penraat was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. As a child, he helped Jewish neighbors by switching lights for them on Shabbat, which they were forbidden to do. When the Nazis occupied The Netherlands and began acting against the Jews, Penraat was an interior designer, architect and sculptor of tiles and statues. He started his resistance activities by forging identity papers for Jews, but was discovered and jailed for several months. Later he made over 20 trips smuggling a total of 406 Jewish people to safety from the Netherlands to Spain via France by using his forgery skills to convince the Nazis they were slave laborers for the Atlantic Wall on France's coast. He lost only one man, who was hit by a train. Penraat was tortured by the Nazis, but revealed nothing about his operations. After his release, he continued his activities until 1944, when it became too risky to continue, and he sp

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April 11: Jaap Penraat, Rescuer

Jaap Penraat, who rescued 406 Jews from the Nazis by smuggling them from the Netherlands to Spain on twenty separate trips, was born in Amsterdam on this date in 1911. Penraat was an interior designer, architect and sculptor who began his resistance work by forging identity papers for Jews. After he was jailed for several months, he intensified his rescue work, using his forgery skills to convince the Nazis that his charges were slave laborers being transported to build Nazi fortifications in France. Ultimately Penraat was captured and tortured, but survived the war. He came to the U.S. in 1958, where he designed the Dutch Mill Cafe at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Yad Vashem recognized him in 1988 as among the Righteous Among the Nations, and Hudson Talbott wrote a children’s book about Penraat, Forging Freedom: A True Story of Heroism During the Holocaust.

“You’re there, a woman [clerk] walks away and either she comes back with papers or she comes back with soldiers.” -Jaap Penraat

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Jaap Penraat (1918-2006), designer. Penraat was born in Amsterdam, where he studied at the interior design department of the Institute for Applied Arts Education (IvKNO). During the Second World War, he set up a small enterprise where he made plaster tiles and statues of saints. He saved the lives of hundreds of Jews by providing them with a permit and helped them escape to France. Hudson Talbott wrote the book Forging Freedom, a True Story of Heroism during the Holocaust about Penraat’s role in the Dutch resistance.
Penraat established himself as an independent industrial designer, he joined the study trip to the United States in 1953, and he was a member of GKf (Association of Practitioners of Applied Arts) and KIO (Association of Industrial Designers). His work included bottles for the Chemical Plant in Naarden with Charles Jongejans and Jan Bons, a sofa with disc-shaped cushions, models for tram and bus shelters, the interior of a tram for the city of Amsterdam with Friso Kramer, and a door handle. Penraat was first married to Noortje Dekker, later the wife of Jan Bons, and