(Arnhem, 1911)

Member of the 2nd Company DNB

With which family in Aalten or Varsseveld did Pieter Goedhart from Arnhem hide during the war?

Pieter Johannes Goedhart was born in Arnhem on 9 July 1911, the eldest son of Pieter J. Goedhart and Johanna W. Neijenesch. He grew up with one sister and three brothers. Pieter completed his military service around 1930. His father passed away in April 1940, just weeks before the invasion by the German army. Before the Second World War, Pieter worked as an interior designer. During the war, he went into hiding on a farm near a mill in Aalten or Varsseveld, where flour was collected by horse and cart. While the exact address remains unknown, Pieter was known to have been happy there.

At the end of the war, he enlisted as a member of the Home Forces and, in mid-April 1945, as a member of the 2nd company of the Dutch National Battalion. Around mid-July 1945, the battalion ceased to exist and he returned home. He became an independent entrepreneur in the field of interior design. On October 24, 1945, he married Neeltje Monteban in Rotterdam. The announcement of the marriage on October 13 took place in both Aalten and Rotterdam. They had one son and three daughters.

Later in life, Goedhart told his children almost nothing about the war. He did, however, attend the reunion for persons in hiding in Aalten in 1984. He always kept the large photograph of the reunion attendees with Prince Bernhard in the center, and he can be seen in it himself.

His son Pieter donated the framed photograph to the Nationaal Onderduikmuseum in February 2020.

Pieter Goedhart senior passed away on March 17, 1992, in Rotterdam.

Pieter Goedhart na de oorlog (rechts op de foto met zijn vrouw tweede van links.