When the German troops occupied the Netherlands, Willem Drees was the parliamentary leader of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party. The occupiers arrested the father of four along with other leading politicians in July 1940. As a means of preventing the internment of Germans in Netherlandish India, the 350 hostages were committed to the Buchenwald concentration camp. There they had lodgings separate from those of the other inmates, were exempt from forced labour, and in general treated better than the others. In late 1941, Willem Drees was transferred to the Netherlands, where he remained in custody for a further three years. After the war he became minister president. He is known to this day for the services he rendered to the Dutch welfare state.
