Recently the Institute received a small collection of documents and photographs concerning the well-known Dutch communist Piet Nak (1906-1996). Piet Nak was designated as one of the organizers of the Amsterdam February Strike (25.02.1941) by the Netherlands Institute of War Documentation. The February Strike marked the protest of the population against the deportation of 400 Jewish men by the Nazi occupation forces. In the Dutch Communist Party Naks role in the strike has always been controversial.
During the turbulent 1960s Piet Nak spoke out again. As chairman of the Vietnam committee, Nak organized demonstrations against the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. During the 1970s Piet Nak formed the Palestine committee. This progressive organization clearly sided with the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Piet Nak earned a living as an illusionist. He had always performed magic tricks as a hobby and turned this activity into his occupation when he became disabled in 1943 as a result of his arrest by the Nazis. His career as a magician was not always successful, and he had several strokes of bad luck. In 1961 at an international children's festival in Moscow, he discovered that the doves he had brought along for his act had died. In 1963 he stopped performing magic tricks.
Text was taken from On the Waterfront - newsletter of the Friends of the IISH Issue 8 (pdf, 739 Kb).