SANDBERG, WILLEM JACOB°

SANDBERG, WILLEM JACOB° (1897–1984), Dutch museum curator and Righteous Among the Nations. Sandberg served as the curator of the Stedelijk (Municipal) Museum in Amsterdam, a position he held from 1938. During the occupation of the Netherlands by the Germans in World War II, Sandberg helped organize an artists' resistance movement. Shocked by the persecution of the Jews, together with several friends he began forging identity cards. His training and expertise as a graphic designer was of help to him in this clandestine endeavor, as well as his contacts in the publishing world. When young Dutch men were called up for forced labor, Sandberg's group produced numerous forged documents for people electing not to report for work in Germany. The Jewish Dorothea Hertz-Loeb was one of those who benefited from Sandberg's aid, to whom, along with three members of her family, he supplied forged identity papers, which were produced in the basement of the museum. When the deportation of Jews began on a massive scale in the summer of 1942, the artists' resistance group decided to blow up the Population Registration Office in Amsterdam. Sandberg participated in the planning of this operation, including the capture of the heavily guarded building and setting fire to the archives. The explosives to be used in this attack were temporarily stored in his home. After much preparation, the attack was carried out on March 27, 1943. Unfortunately, the Germans eventually got wind of the identity of the perpetrators of this attack and most were arrested, with 13 men condemned to death and executed in July 1943. Sandberg luckily escaped arrest. The night when his home was searched, he happened to be in the dunes near the North Sea, where the art treasures of Amsterdam had been hidden. His wife and son, however, were arrested and incarcerated for several months. Sandberg hid in the countryside for the remainder of the occupation, circulating letters to make people believe he had escaped to Switzerland. From his hideout, he sent reports on German troop movements. After the war, Sandberg served until 1963 as director of the Stedelijk Museum, which he turned into an internationally acclaimed museum of contemporary art. In 1964, he accepted the invitation to head the newly established Israel Museum in Jerusalem, a position he held until 1968. That year, Yad Vashem awarded him the title of Righteous Among the Nations. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Yad Vashem Archives M31–504; I. Gutman (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations: Netherlands, Vol. 2 (2004), 659–60. (Mordecai Paldiel (2nd ed.)