Frieda Belinfante

In November of 1941, she met Willem Arondeus, a gay man. Together with other resistance members, they established a fund to support artists who were unable to work due to the Nazi occupation. By early 1942, Dutch Jews’ identification cards were required to have a J stamped on them. This created a market for forged documents. Having successfully forged travel documents for a friend years before, Frieda began making false identification cards for herself and a few friends. She soon realized that more people needed them. There were many close calls. Once, she tried to deliver false IDs for her neighbors, but they did not show up. When she went to their home, it was being searched by the Gestapo, who in turn detained her. When they escorted her home, she deftly hid a few false cards behind some sheet music. When talking about all that she had done in her life, she said “I’ve always helped people…They haven't all been worth my effort, but the effort was worth it.”

The scale of the forgery work escalated and soon, the resistance group had distributed nearly 70,000 fake ID cards. This created a problem for the group: the original cards—held in Amsterdam’s Population Registry—could easily be checked, thus revealing the forgeries. Frieda herself offered up a solution: bomb the building and destroy the originals. The group agreed and Frieda set about planning the attack. It was decided that Willem would lead a group of men disguised as police officers into the building to plant the bombs. Frieda herself wanted to be a part of this section of the plan, but the men would not allow her due to fear of her not passing as a man and the misguided belief that the work would be too difficult for women. She recalled this with the quip “women could have brought in some of the explosions, some of the things that were not too heavy to carry.” Frieda watched from a nearby rooftop on March 27, 1943 as the bombs went off and destroyed nearly 800,000 ID cards. 

After the bombing, Frieda and her fellow conspirators went underground to avoid being caught. With a short haircut and a “three-piece suit that fit [her] to a tee, except for this”—gesturing to her chest—Frieda passed remarkably well as a man for three months. During this time, she ran into her mother and her ex-husband’s second wife without raising suspicion. By 1943, she felt increasing fear that she would be discovered. She was able to escape the Netherlands by foot, through southern France and eventually to neutral Switzerland where she successfully claimed refugee status. She stayed there until the end of the war. Her close friend, Willem, was not so successful; he was caught by the Nazis and executed for his involvement. His final request was for the world to know that “homosexuals were not cowards.” 

Frieda never hid her sexuality and never felt less than or different than her heterosexual peers. When asked about it during her oral history, she said “I just lived my life and never explained anything.” This openness, unfortunately, did impact her later career. In 1947, she emigrated to the United States and was appointed the first female conductor of the Orange County Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1962, her contract was not renewed, and she was out of a job. She attributed this to homophobia and gossiping about her sexuality. After this, she moved to New Mexico where she taught music. Reflecting on her life, she said she’d had the most wonderful and romantic life. She followed it up with “you make your own life. Nothing makes it for you.” She passed away in 1995 at the age of 90.