Tribute - Tony van Renterghem
WWII Dutch Resistance Fighter
1919 - 2009
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Veterans for Peace "Tony van Renterghem Chapter 139", Olympic Peninsula, marches in the Port Angeles, Washington 4th of July. This is the first time the Chapter has marched in the 4th of July parade as the re-named "Tony van Renterghem" chapter, in honor of the WWII Dutch Resistance fighter in WWII who co-founder the No. Ariz. and Olympic Peninsula VFP Chapters before his death in 2010. |
Tony was serving as one of the last mounted cavalry officers in the Netherlands Armed Forces, when he fought the Germans during the Blitz, and later served in the Dutch Resistance during the German WWII occupation of Holland, where he helped hide those fleeing Nazi persecution and rand the film and photo units of the Dutch Resistance (known as the "Underground Camera").
He immigrated to the USA in 1948 where he spent thirty five years in the motion picture and television industry, working on such films as "The Diary of Anne Frank" and the biblical epic "The Greatest Story Ever Told."
Tony co-founded and served as the first executive director of the Northern Arizona Veterans For Peace "Bud Day Chapter 108." He designed and helped produce the "Voices for Peace" traveling exhibit, a series of quotations about war that was displayed in schools and libraries. He later became a founding member of the North Olympic Peninsula Chapter of VFP in Port Angeles when he moved to Washington State.
His book, "The Last Hussar - Resistance Without Bullets," completed just before his death, his resistance memoirs is to be published in 2010 by Dutch publisher, Conserve.