Burned Hermes: A resistance monument for data deletion in WW2 — “In the blackest hours, we continued to know that there are eternal principles”
In the night of 12/13 December 1942, five students set fire to the student enrollment data files of Utrecht University. This data deletion was an act of resistance, to ensure the data would not be abused to send students to forced labor in Nazi Germany (‘Arbeitseinsatz’).
The engraving honors the five students: Frits Iordens, Rutger Matthijsen, Gijs den Besten, Geert Lubberhuizen and Anne Maclaine Pont. Iordens was killed in 1944 while helping allied pilots. Lubberhuizen founded Dutch publisher De Bezige Bij. Four of the students are listed in the Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations.
The bronze Hermes statue partially melted in the same fire. This Seated Hermes was a replica made in the early 1900s of a Roman copy made in the 1st century of a Greek statue from the 4th century BC attributed to the Greek sculptor, Lysippos.
The statue is located in the senate building of Utrecht University, created by artist Willem Noyons, and unveiled on May 4, 2006
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https://www.4en5mei.nl/oorlogsmonumenten/zoeken/4094/utrecht-verzetsmonument-in-het-academiegebouw
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https://www.duic.nl/algemeen/geheimen-van-de-stad/
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seated_Hermes
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