Henriette Roosenburg
Henriette Roosenburg (26 May 1916 – 1972) was a Dutch journalist and political prisoner. Her memoir The Walls Came Tumbling Down described her attempts to return to the Netherlands from Germany after being released from prison at the end of World War II. Born in the Netherlands to an upper-class family, she was a graduate student at the University of Leiden at the start of World War II and became a courier in the Dutch resistance, where she served under the code name Zip. During this time she also wrote for the Dutch newspaper Het Parool. In 1944 she was caught and sentenced to death, and became a Night and Fog prisoner in a German prison at Waldheim. Start of resistance work Born in The Hague to an upper-class family, Jet, as she was called by family and friends, was a graduate student at the University of Leiden at the start of World War II. During 1941, she became involved in the Dutch resistance. She started out by helping Jewish people flee or go into hiding. During 1942 and 1943, she collected information for the editors-in-chief of the influential Dutch resistance newspaper Het Parool (The Watchword). In 1943, she was recruited as a helper on an escape line running via Belgium, France and the Pyrenees to Spain, from where escapees could travel to London. It was set up at the instruction of the Dutch government in exile in London, with the aim to have people brought over to England to inform the government on the occupied homeland and the Dutch resistance. Dutch Secret agent Piet Gerbrands, trained in England, was dropped in the Netherlands in March 1943 to organize the line. He used the assistance of the resistance group Fiat Libertas, which already ran both an escape line for Allied air men shot down over the Netherlands and an intelligence line to Brussels. The escape line for the government was to be a separate line and was given the name St John, a codename of Gerbrands'. Jet, who spoke French fluently and could pass for a Belgian citizen, worked under the alias Gaby. She took her charges to Brussels, from where the Belgian guide ('passeur') Henri-Jean Nys assisted them to Toulouse. Secret agent Gerbrands was the first to return to London. However, the line St John only functioned briefly. The nazi counterintelligence agencies were able to disrupt the line by arresting various Dutch and Belgian helpers between the end of September and November 1943. Practically all of the members of resistance group Fiat Libertas were also arrested. Military espionage Jet, however, escaped arrest various times. When the government escape line was abandoned, she helped several allied airmen escape to Brussels. Her ability to rapidly cross the Dutch-Belgian border gained her the nickname Zip: she seemed to 'zip' to and fro. The Dutch Bureau of Intelligence in London, working for the Dutch government and responsible for sending secret agents such as Gerbrands, by now knew of Jets feats and capacities. The