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The vaccines developed before and during the conflict made a great difference in the lives of the soldiers: up until then, epidemics (along with gangrene, typhus, etc.) had been one of the main causes of death in wars. Generalized vaccination against contagious diseases, one of the major inventions of the 20th century, became indispensable during the First World War. It was effective in disinfecting traumatic wounds, as was “verdunization,” a simple technique using diluted bleach (sodium hypochlorite). During the war, French surgeon Alexis Carrel and English chemist Henry Drysdale Dakin developed the Carrel-Dakin chlorine-based antiseptic. In consequence, there was a crying need for improvements in antisepsis. Heinous infections weakened the injured soldiers, making them more vulnerable, particularly to death from gangrene. Happe might give a lecture to students next year.Infections were very numerous and difficult to control due to a lack of hygiene in the urgency of war, the large number of injuries of all kinds, and the wide range of hard-to-treat conditions that grew out of this situation. Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker congratulates Happe. Various Leiden historians such as Jan Bank attended the lecture. Hiltje Cleveringa (the daughter of Rudolph Cleveringa) and her husband congratulate Katja Happe. Take decisions – make history! And be aware that this is what you are doing.’ Or, as Koopmans wrote in his leaflet, five years before he was killed by a stray German bullet: ‘Is a good conscience of no value to you, then? If you make haste, gentlemen, much can still be attained.’ ‘Form an opinion about the events going on around you. Happe ended her speech with an appeal to those present. History consists of individual decisions, however small. However, these individual histories are important, says Happe. And five years later, there were around six million fewer Jews in Europe than before. At the end of November, no fewer than 2,500 Jewish civil servants, teachers and scholars had been dismissed, including several staff members of Leiden University. ‘What matters is that in these times the Dutch people are strong that they show they have a conscience that they are not willing to allow the whole difference between good and evil to be obscured.’ĭid Koopmans’s protest help? No, one could conclude. And although ‘this battle’ had already been lost, much could still be achieved if the Dutch people stayed strong, he wrote in an underground pamphlet in November 1940. The Aryan Declaration was a disgrace in the opinion of Amsterdam pastor Jan Koopmans. However, not all Dutch people willingly obeyed their new rulers. Around 200,000 Dutch citizens ultimately filled in the declaration, out of fear or because they thought the persecution of the Jews ‘wouldn’t take off.’ They thus provided the Germans with valuable information for the final solution to ‘the Jewish question.’ Signs of a conscience The secretaries-general of the government ministries – at that point the highest officials in the Netherlands – decided to respect the wishes of the occupier because they thought this was ‘a temporary measure.’ Nor did the Supreme Court protest against the declaration. Cleveringa was not the only one to protest,' said Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker before the lecture.
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If they did not, they would be dismissed. At the end of the summer, Dutch civil servants, teachers and scholars were told to sign the Aryan Declaration, in which they had to state whether they were Jewish.
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The Dutch army had surrendered but a few months ago, and the German army had begun to introduce the first discriminatory measures. In her speech, Happe took her audience back to the summer of 1940. At present, she is the director of Ladelund memorial site in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. She worked as a guest researcher at the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD) and was an academic advisor at Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg. Katja Happe (1970) studied German and history in Siegen (Germany) and history in Groningen.