Jewish Resistance Hero Identified 80 Years After Execution by Nazis
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by i24 News and Algemeiner Staff
Jewish men, women, and children march with bundles down the main thoroughfare in Krakow, Poland, during the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto by Nazi German soldiers, March 1943. Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Instytut Pamieci Narodowejvia via Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News — Dutch forensic investigators have finally identified the mysterious remains of a man executed by Nazi occupiers as that of a Jewish resistance hero named Bernard Luza, investigators said Wednesday.
Luza, 39, was shot by firing squad in 1943 after he and hundreds of other Jews and their relatives were arrested following a raid on a factory in northern Amsterdam on November 11, 1942. His body was discovered in 1945 in a grave with four others, buried at a shooting range near Schiphol Airport.
Two of the bodies were quickly identified, and a third in 2013. But the two others, including that of Luza remained a mystery.
“Now, through the use of DNA technology employed in a relationship study, his [Luza’s] remains were finally identified,” said Geert Jonker, head of the Dutch Defense Ministry’s forensic unit specializing in identifying human remains.
In 1943 werd de Joodse verzetsman Bernard Luza gefusilleerd. Sinds 2013 lag hij in een naamloos graf op Nationaal Ereveld Loenen.
De Bergings- en Identificatiedienst heeft hem met een DNA-verwantschapsonderzoek geïdentificeerd. Na ruim 80 jaar is er nu zekerheid over zijn lot. pic.twitter.com/9Bs5rPR7eX
— Ministerie van Defensie (@Defensie) August 23, 2023
“It happened after a cousin of Luza was traced in Australia,” Jonker told AFP.
“After more than 80 years, his relatives finally have certainty about the fate of their missing family member.”
Luza, a member of the Dutch Communist Party and People’s Militia, joined the resistance after the May 10, 1940 Nazi occupation.
“Seen as the leader of a resistance group, Luza was accused of distributing an illegal underground newspaper and calling on people to commit sabotage,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
He was sentenced to death after his arrest in late 1942 and executed on February 15, 1943, by firing squad. Luza’s wife Clara and young daughter Eva were murdered in the Sobibor concentration camp after the raid. His father Solomon and five of his brothers and sisters also perished in the Auschwitz and Sobibor death camps.
