Het Parool

Het Parool is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was first published on 10 February 1941 as a resistance paper during the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940–1945). In English, its name means The Password or The Motto.

Second World war

The paper was preceded by a stenciled newsletter which was started in May 1940 by Frans Goedhart. In late 1940, Wim van Norden joined the group of producers of the newsletter; Van Norden would later serve as director of the newspaper between 1945 and 1979.Jaap Nunes Vaz also became involved with the newspaper. In 1944, the paper, albeit illegal and vigorously persecuted, reached a circulation of approximately 100,000, and was distributed by the Dutch resistance. Other important contributors were Simon Carmiggelt and Max Nord, who lived with van Norden and their families on the Reguliersgracht, in the headquarters of the paper, which was never discovered by the Nazis.

Numerous staff were apprehended and killed by the Germans and their Dutch collaborators. Nunes Vaz was arrested by the Gestapo on 25 October 1942 and sent to Sobibor concentration camp.