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September 21, 2021, updated 17-11-2021

AFVN/BvA - Anti-Fascists?

Hmm...

to index-page Arthur Graaff files | main page

What is the AFVN-BVA?
Antisemitic statements by prominent AFVN members
Defense of the Sovjet-invasion of Afghanistan, 1979
After the collapse of the Wall
Kiss for Honecker, support for Milosevic
Kees van der Pijl (chairman, conspiracy theorist)
The AFVN and stalinism
Arthur Graaff - AFVN spokesman or not?

Sources
BVD-monthly reports 1968-1977
BVD reports about AFVN

What is the AFVN-BVA?

The abbreviation AFVN/BVA stands for Anti-Fascist Former Resistance Fighters Netherlands / League of Anti-Fascist (Antifascistische oud-Verzetsstrijders Nederland / Bond van Antifascisten). The AFVN/BVA is an association with an imposing sounding name, which conceals the fact that it is essentially a trivial communist splinter group, in which no former resistance members are active.

The AFNV was founded by a handful of inveterate Stalinists, in protest against the withholding of support by the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN) for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, August 21, 1968. This invasion marked the end of the Prague Spring and heralded years of renewed oppression.

From a report by the Netherlands Internal Security Service (Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst, BVD), October 1975:

"To the multitude of pro-Russian-communist organisations a new one has been added. In August, the first issue of "De Anti-fascist" (The Anti-Fascist) was published, temporarily on an irregular basis, by the Association of Anti-Fascist Former Dutch Resistance Fighters - Bond van Anti-Fascisten (AFVN), which was founded in April 1974 but only wanted to go public after obtaining royal approval. The idea of founding yet another new association in this field (after all, similar organisations already existed, including the communist United Resistance 1940-1945, which apparently wanted to compete with the AFVN) arose in response to the World Congress of Peace Forces (Moscow, October 1973), where the Dutch former resistance fighters were not represented as a group, although many expressions of sympathy had been received from them. The initiators, Mr. H. van LUTTIKHUIZEN and Mr. M. TRAPMAN, both active pro-Russian communists, held the positions of chairman and secretary, respectively.”

It is striking that the BVD reported only three times on the AFVN/Bond van Antifascisten in its monthly reports from 1968-1977. It indicates that even then this association was considered extremely marginal - most attention was paid to the CPN and its direct contacts with the Soviet Union.

The AFVN's main activities consisted of organising trips to former concentration camps in East Germany and Poland, and publishing a quarterly magazine, De Antifascist.

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Antisemitic statements by prominent AFVN members

In 1982 AFVN chairman Henk van Luttikhuizen (1916-2003) and his wife Alie van Luttikhuizen-de Vries (1922-2002) appeared on Sonja Barend's well-attended TV talk show. Writer and journalist Nico Scheepmaker in the Leeuwarder Courant:

"When I saw Mr. and Mrs. Van Luttikhuizen sitting in Sonja's studio on Monday evening, I immediately had a 'deja-vu': I knew them! Eight years ago a dozen people demonstrated in front of the Russian embassy in The Hague for the release of the dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. Rabbi Soetendorp was there, very selflessly, because as far as I know Bukovsky is no Jew. And the writer Maarten Biesheuvel. And the East-European expert and journalist Henk Wolzak of the Bucharovsky Committee. And the jumper Vladimir Bukovsky, who won prizes now and then, and thus kept the name of this most heroic of all dissidents (read his book 'Castle between four walls') a bit alive. And my wife and I. And Jozientje Driessen-Van het Reve, who rang the embassy doorbell to present our petition to the ambassador, or to the third secretary if he would be so kind as to appear. She rang the bell, but the hermetically sealed gate did not buzz open, nor did someone from the embassy emerge from his lair to receive the letter, so Jozientje put it in the bus: halfway into the bus but still holding it, face to the camera, click-click, hoof beats in the background, it was all about the publicity, after all, because only through publicity can a stone be torn loose from the immovable edifice of the Soviet state...

We unfurled the banners and held up the placards with appropriate slogans, while in the background two police officers kept an eye on us. Not only to guard the embassy, but also because next to us, with us, in the midst of us, a counter-demonstration was held by a couple from Hengelo, who held up a banner with the text: "As former resistance fighters, we tell you: the Soviet Union is a constitutional state", with all the N's written backwards. Photos show that we were busy discussing with the Van Luttikhuizens, civilized, friendly people among themselves, as it should be in politics, and after we had been standing in front of the embassy blue in the face and arguing like this for a few hours on that 29 March 1974, we put the demonstration signs back in our cars, The Van Luttikhuizens rolled up their banner, and while we started the engine, we saw them walk to the embassy, they rang the bell, the door swung open, and they stepped inside to be, I presume, welcomed with a glass of nice hot, heart-strengthening Russian tea.

And there they were again, eight years later. In the meantime, Bukovsky is in England, Afghanistan is occupied by the Russians, in Poland Lech Walesa is imprisoned, but the Van Luttikhuizens appeared to have been able to maintain the faith of their comrades unshaken and undamaged by all the commotion. Everything that was said about the position of the Jews in the Soviet Union was a lie, and he could know, because his brother had married a 'Jewess'. If the Jews were discriminated against, how could it be that 6% of the judiciary consisted of Jews, while they only constituted 1% of the population? (Counter-question: how come so few camp commanders are Jewish, even though they make up 1% of the population?). He had asked the Chief Rabbi in Moscow himself, and he had assured him that there was no discrimination - as the KGB interpreter undoubtedly conveyed literally.

André Boers, a Zionist, patiently explained that you hear very different things if you, without prior knowledge of the KGB, visit the Jews in the Soviet Union at home and hear their stories about visas being refused, being immediately fired, without unemployment benefits and that kind of refinement of a socialist country like ours. Then one of the Van Luttikhuizen's comrades ('a Jew himself'!) shouted through the microphone that those young Jews had learned nothing from the war, whereupon Sonja manfully intervened and said that the microphone had to be removed! Karel van het Reve was the last one to answer her question how it was possible that people could think so diametrically different about a subject? Look', said Karel van het Reve, 'there are people who claim, and in their own way prove, that no Jews were gassed during the war, and that no six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis either. Thus, despite all evidence to the contrary, as long as you never give up your faith, you can continue to claim that the Soviet Union is a state of salvation and that Jews are not discriminated over there. You can be anti-fascist and still be as stupid as a pig's backside.

I'll put it in my own words, I didn't record it on tape, but this is what it came down to in general. Afterwards Sonja Barend and her editors wondered whether they had done the right thing by including Mr and Mrs Van Luttikhuizen with their extreme views in the programme? Does something like this work or does it have the opposite effect? Is the reasonableness of André Boers' argument and the unreasonableness of Henk van Luttikhuizen's argument obvious, or do you only fan the flames of anti-Semitism, no matter what, even if you pile hot coals on the head of someone who doesn't want to see the truth? I do not know either. I only know that it was a fascinating programme again, and that Sonja fought it with verve, intelligence and great determination.

Nico Scheepmaker again reported on the AFNV in 1986:

"The A.F.V.N. is the organisation that asked [Foreign affairs] minister Van den Broek and [Amsterdam] mayor Van Thijn to prevent Anatoli Shcheransky from speaking at the Dokwerker (the monument of resistance against the persecution of the Jews) on 29 September, when on that day there would be a demonstration for the Jews in the Soviet Union who were not allowed to go to Israel. Shcheransky might then tell slanderous lies about the Soviet Union, or, what would be even more painful, the pure truth about how Jewish refuseniks' and other dissidents in the Soviet Union are treated in the camps, prisons and psychiatric institutions. After all, Shcheransky can speak for himself, after nine years in a camp with a very strict regime and 400 days in solitary confinement...".

Scheepmaker also pointed out that the AFVN magazine De Antifascist made rather dubious statements about Jews. Issue 3/1986, for example, contained a twelve-page ode to the Soviet Union and a tirade against Dutch and Israeli Jews, written by someone using the pseudonym 'Cohen'. Scheepmaker, again in the Leeuwarder Courant:

"How far can you go in your admiration of the Soviet Union and your hatred of Zionism without crossing that thin line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? This is the language of the anti-Semite, this is anti-Semitism under the guise of anti-Zionism, as practised by the Soviet Union with so much verve. But the man himself is called Cohen! Well, in the Soviet Union they are called Dragunsky and Ziws, in the Netherlands apparently Cohen, but it is not the Jew, but it is the Stalinist in them who triumphs."

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The AFVN supports the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 1979

On 25 December 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. This started a war that cost the lives of about 1.5 million Afghans and about 15,000 Soviet soldiers. In 1989, the Soviet army withdrew without having achieved anything. The war, now in the form of a civil war, continued until 1992.

In the first issue of De Antifascist, the magazine of the AFVN, from after the invasion, the AFVN president Van Luttikhuizen, on page 5, loudly and clearly expresses his support for the Soviet invasion:

"We think that the Soviet Union, in view of its treaty of friendship, was obliged to provide support when the government asked for it. (...) What these rebels are like we have seen in a broadcast of the N.C.R.V. [follows list of horror stories]. Imagine if such rebels were to threaten us. We would ask the whole world for help."

On page 32 of the same edition is again a defence of the invasion, on pages 33-34 is a translated article from the Pravda, the Soviet state newspaper, justifying the invasion."

Sources

De Antifascist, 1980, eerste kwartaal, blz. 5, 32-34.
https://www.afvn.nl/deantifascist/de-anti-fascist-1980-1e-kwartaal.pdf

Afghan War 1978-1992. Encyclopedia Brittanica. London, [accessed 18-08-2021].
https://www.britannica.com/event/Afghan-War

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After the collapse of the Wall

Even after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the AFVN continued to support its old comrades. In 1992 the association was concerned about the way the German state was persecuting former Stasi chief Erich Mielke. In that same year the AFVN claimed to have five thousand members (it was more likely a few dozen than hundreds, let alone thousands) and openly supported Erich Honecker, the former East German dictator.

Kiss for Honecker, support Milosevic

In 1993, Alie van Luttikhuizen even visited Honecker in prison: "Before that, she did not like him very much, after all he was a typical German with a straight back, but the brotherly kiss after the half-hour contact worked wonders," the Nederlands Dagblad reported at the time.

On the eve of their lives, the Van Luttikhuizen were still fighting the Yugoslavia Tribunal and openly voiced their support for Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Serbia, who was then on trial for his war crimes.

Joop Smidt

In 2003, after the death of Henk van Luttikhuizen, former resistance fighter and Stalinist Joop Smidt (1924-2006) became the new chairman of the AFVN. He turned out to be an even more hardliner than the van Luttikhuizens. Smidt had already broken with the CPN in 1956. In a 2005 interview he said: "It was not the crushing of the [Hungarian] uprising that prompted us to break with the party, nor the subsequent street terror against the CPN, but the fact that after that time the CPN increasingly began to imitate the bourgeois press with terms like 'dictatorship of the occupation' instead of 'dictatorship of the people' that really bothered us. We then handed in our party booklet."

Celine van der Hoek-de Vries

Smidt was succeeded by Celine van der Hoek-de Vries (1920-2011). She was Jewish, an Auschwitz survivor, but also a hardcore communist, having lived after the liberation in the DDR ("anti-fascist Germany") until 1957. On her return to the Netherlands, she preached the blessings of socialism.

Kees van der Pijl

Her successor was Kees van der Pijl (1947). This dogmatic communist from the 1970s and 1980s and later professor was AFVN president from 2013-2015. A Soviet communist and conspiracy-thinker (he believes that the 9-11 attacks were a "Zionist conspiracy"), in the right place with the AFVN, an organisation that is a conspiracy in itself.

After his departure the AFVN is without a chairman. That, too, is food for thought. Just like the fact that the AFVN has never distanced itself from the fantasies of the ex-chairman.

See:

Samuel Osborne. Sussex University professor who claimed Israelis carried out 9/11 must have emeritus status removed, Jewish group says. The Independent, London, 06-11-2018.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sussex-university-world-trade-centre-911-professor-kees-van-der-pijl-israel-tweet-jewish-a8620416.html

Daniel Sugarman. Jewish group calls for ex-professor to be stripped of title after he wrote 'Israelis blew up Twin Towers'. Kees van der Pijl said 'Israelis' carried out the 9/11 attacks with 'help from Zionists' in the US Government. The Jewish Chronicle, London, 07-11-2018.
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/emeritus-professor-kees-van-der-pijl-of-sussex-university-claims-israelis-blew-up-twin-towers-1.472129

Kemal Rijken. ‘Antisemitische complotdenker’ Van der Pijl naar DeLaMar Theater voor 9/11-congres. Jonet, Amsterdam, 05-06-2019.
https://jonet.nl/antisemitische-complotdenker-van-der-pijl-naar-delamar-voor-9-11-congres/

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The AFVN and Stalinism

To this day, the AFVN has never distanced itself from Stalinism. This is evidenced by the AFVN's definition of fascism, "the definition of Georgi Dimitrov". Remarkably, this does not refer to the original text from 1935, but to an adaptation of it by Jan Cleton, "organiser and editor" of the AFVN, on the NCPN site: https://www.ncpn.nl/manifest/2006/17/fascisme.htm

The original piece is The Fascist Offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the struggle of the working class against fascism.

It was written in 1935 by Georgi Dimitrov, the later first Stalinist dictator of Bulgaria. He recited it at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International.

Briefly, it states that fascism is an outgrowth of capitalism aimed at the destruction of the Soviet Union. Communists must cooperate with other parties to fight fascism, whereby the Communists can seize power and then achieve the main goal of destroying capitalism. In Dimitrov's words:

"And we all want this, because only in this way will the working class at the head of all the workers, banded together in a million strong revolutionary army under the leadership of the Communist International, be able to fulfil its historic mission with certainty - to wipe fascism off the face of the earth and with it capitalism!"

Anyone familiar with these concluding words will understand why, in 1930s Europe, there was no particular enthusiasm when communist parties made proposals for cooperation.

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Arthur Graaff and the AFVN - spokesperson or not?

Arthur Graaff has acted as a spokesman for the AFVN since about 2015. As soon as he has taken strange actions, AFVN secretary Hein van Kasbergen distances himself from him. But a few days later it invariably turns out that nothing at all has changed. What's more: all bizarre statements by Graaff are placed on the AFVN site by site editor Jan Cleton without any changes.

It is remarkable that both Van Kasbergen and Cleton are prominent members of the NCPN, the New Communist Party of the Netherlands - a splinter group of delusional people who base themselves on Marxism-Leninism - and on that basis pursue a dictatorship, the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

How disastrous such dictatorships are needs no further explana-tion.

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Sources

Georgi Dimitrov. The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Main Report delivered at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International, 02-08-1935. Selected Works Sofia Press, Sofia, Volume 2, 1972.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm#s2

Bouwvakkers en studenten roepen op CPN te stemmen. [Kees van der Pijl is mede-ondertekenaar]. De Waarheid, Amsterdam, 20-03-1974.
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010375195:mpeg21:a0038

Maandrapport Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst, no. 10 1975. Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken, Den Haag, oktober 1975.
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1975-10c.pdf
Cohen. De schande van het NIW. De Antifascist. 12e jaargang, no. 3.. Rheden, 1986. Blz. 11-22.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200413130734/https://www.afvn.nl/wp-content/uploads/de-anti-fascist-1986-3e-kwartaal.pdf
Nico Scheepmaker. Een déja-vu bij Sonja op maandagavond. Leeuwarder Courant, Leeuwarden, 13-02-1982.
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010621935:mpeg21:a0294

De revolutionaire lijn van een geïsoleerde club. [Opmerkelijke uitspraken van Kees van der Pijl]. De Waarheid, Amsterdam, 12-01-1984.
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010378359:mpeg21:a0130

Nico Scheepmaker. Trijfel, Leeuwarder Courant, Leeuwarden, 23-09-1986.
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010566149:mpeg21:a0207
Duizenden betogen voor Sovjet-Joden. De Volkskrant, Amsterdam, 30-09-1986.
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ABCDDD:010878676:mpeg21:a0139
Kees van der Pijl. Het Amerika dat de kandidaten voor ohgen staat. De Waarheid, Amsterdam, 22-10-1988.
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010472615:mpeg21:a0092

AFVN ongerust over protest tegen Mielke. Nederlands Dagblad, Amersfoort, 28-02-1992.
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010559906:mpeg21:a0099
Bernice Willemsen. Soep met vlees en groente. Het Parool, Amsterdam, 29-12-1992.
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ABCDDD:010842624:mpeg21:a0047

Herman Verhoef. Erich Honecker als profeet. Nederlands Dagblad, Amersfoort, 01-05-1993.
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010628575:mpeg21:a0128
Louis Cornelisse. Vijftig jaar ongeknakte dwarsheid. [Interview met Henrik en Alie van Luttikhuizen-de Vries]. Trouw, Amsterdam, 16-01-1999.
https://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/vijftig-jaar-ongeknakte-dwarsheid~b1b06fdf/
Jan Cleton. In memoriam Alie van Luttikhuizen-de Vries. [stuk stamt uit 2002]. Gerrit Herders Blog, 07-03-2019.
http://gerritherders.blogspot.com/2019/03/henk-en-alie-een-levenslange-strijd.html

Michel Wijnhold. Joop Smidt (1924-2006). [Necrologie, bevat interview uit 2005]. Voorwaarts, orgaan van de Communististische Jongeren Beweging, Amsterdam, 06-11-2006.

https://www.voorwaarts.net/rode-erfenis-interview-met-joop-smidt/

Annabelle Schouten. 'Overdreven? Dat zeiden ze voor de oorlog ook'. [Necrologie Celine van der Hoek-de Vries. Voorwaarts, orgaan van de Communististische Jongeren Beweging, Amsterdam, 08-10-2011.
https://www.voorwaarts.net/overdreven-dat-zeiden-ze-voor-de-oorlog-ook/
Natalie Polman. Mysterie: wie waren de mensen in het bosgraf op Het Leesten? In de buurt, Apeldoorn, 27-01-2018.
https://indebuurt.nl/apeldoorn/genieten-van/mysteries/mysterie-wie-waren-de-mensen-in-het-bosgraf-op-het-leesten~17384/

Henk Runhaar. Antifascisten verklaren Arthur Graaff voor gek. Gooi en Eemlander, Hilversum, 19-04-2018.
https://www.gooieneemlander.nl/cnt/dmf20180926_80004893

Professor Kees van der Pijl: “Israël achter 9/11”. Joods.nl, Amsterdam. 03-11-2018.
https://www.joods.nl/2018/11/professor-kees-van-der-pijl/

Kemal Rijken. ‘Antisemitische complotdenker’ Van der Pijl naar DeLaMar Theater voor 9/11-congres. Jonet.nl, Amsterdam, 05-06-2019.

https://jonet.nl/antisemitische-complotdenker-van-der-pijl-naar-delamar-voor-9-11-congres/

Profiel en bibliografie Kees van der Pijl, Academia Edu, [gezien 13-04-2020]
https://independent.academia.edu/KeesVanderPijl
Over ons. AFNV / BVA, Amersfoort, [gezien 12-04-2020]
https://www.afvn.nl/contact/

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BVD monthly reports 1968-1977.

https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1968-01.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1968-02.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1968-09.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1968-10.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1968-11.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1968-12.pdf

https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1969-01.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1969-02.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1969-03.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1969-04.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1969-05.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1969-06.pdf

https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1969-07.pdf
– (geen rapport augustus)
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1969-09.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1969-10.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1969-11.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1969-12.pdf

https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1970-01.pdf

https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1970-02.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1970-03.pdf https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1970-04.pdf https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1970-05.pdf https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1970-06.pdf https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1970-07.pdf

– (geen rapport augustus)
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1970-09.pdf
(oktober: rapport over Zuidmolukkers)
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1970-10.pdf

https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1970-11.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1970-12.pdf

1971

https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1971-01.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1972-01.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1972-02.pdf

https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1972-03.pdf

https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1972-04.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1972-05.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1972-06.pdf

https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1974-07.pdf

– (geen rapport augustus)
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1974-09.pdf
https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1974-10.pdf https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1974-11.pdf https://www.inlichtingendiensten.nl/jaarkwartaalmaand/1974-12.pdf

BVD reports about the AFVN

October 1975:

League of Anti-Fascists

"To the multitude of pro-Russian-communist organisations a new one has been added. In August, the first issue of "DeAnti-fascist" (The Anti-Fascist) was published, temporarily on an irregular basis, by the Association of Anti-Fascist Former Dutch ResistanceFighters - Bond van Anti-Fascisten (AFVN), which was founded in April 1974 but only wanted to go public after obtaining royal approval. The idea of foundingyet another new association in this field (after all, similar organisations already existed, including the communist United Resistance 1940-1945, whichapparently wanted to compete with the AFVN) arose in response to the World Congress of Peace Forces (Moscow, October 1973), where the Dutch formerresistance fighters were not represented as a group, although many expressions of sympathy had been received from them. The initiators, Mr. H. vanLUTTIKHUIZEN and Mr. M. TRAPMAN, both active pro-Russian communists, held the positions of chairman and secretary, respectively.”

The association, like most other communist umbrella organisations, has the general aim "to fight for peace and friendship between peoples". In addition, the Association wants to stand up for the material interests of victims of the resistance" In order to achieve its goals, the AFVN wants to maintain contacts with anti-fascist organisations at home and abroad and to join the international communist umbrella organisation Federation Internationale des Resistants (FIR).

To become a member of the AFVN it is not necessary to have actively participated in the resistance movement. The financial resources required for its activities will come from membership fees and from the proceeds of trips it plans to organise for its members to places where resistance to war and fascism took place.

BVD, July 1976:

"The Association of Anti-Fascist Former Resistance Fighters of the Netherlands - Bond van Anti-fascisten (AFVN) set up a committee to unite opposition to the "Berufsverbote" in the German Federal Republic, which took part, among other things, in a demonstration held in mid-March 1976 in Strasbourg under the auspices of the Federation Internationale des Résistants (FIR, a communist umbrella organisation to which the AFVN is affiliated); Secretary M.A. TR. represented the AFVN at FIR conferences in Luxembourg (on 17-10-75 on "Berufsverbote") and Paris (at the end of November '75 on peace and disarmament) and at the international conference on "Berufsverbote" held in Karlsruhe on 29 May '76."

BVD, January 1977:

The Anti Fascist Old Resistance Fighters Netherlands - Bond van Anti Fascisten (AFVN) also makes use of Kontakt BV's services. Kontakt BV provides the AFVN with spa trips to West Germany, Switzerland, the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in which former resistance fighters can participate. In addition, in 1977 the AFVN travel service organised two trips for its members to former concentration camps. The first trip - in May - went to the DDR, the second - in August - to Poland.

[Droog: Kontakt BV was a travel organisation that arranged trips mainly to 'socialist' countries; it was probably a company run by stooges of the KGB, which in this way raked in Western currency and propaganda by deluding travellers into thinking that these countries were indeed sanctuaries.]

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