Hendrikus Antonius "Henk" Zanoli (21 April 1923 – 9 December 2015) was a Dutch lawyer and member of the Dutch resistance during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, who was awarded the honorific title

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

, but returned his medal after an

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i air strike killed six of his family members. Zanoli was born in Laren in 1923. During the war, the Zanoli family were involved in the resistance. In 1943, when Zanoli's father had already been arrested by the German occupiers, Zanoli himself smuggled the young Jewish boy Elhanan Pinto from

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

Eemnes Eemnes () is a municipality and a village in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht. The town of Eemnes Eemnes formerly consisted of two villages, Eemnes-Binnen ("Inner Eemnes") and Eemnes-Buiten ("Outer Eemnes"). These names referred to t ...

. With his mother Jans, Zanoli kept Pinto in hiding for the rest of the war. While the rest of Pinto's family were killed in

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

, he survived to reach age 72 before dying in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

in 2007. The resistance work cost Zanoli's father and brother-in-law their lives, while his Jewish sister-in-law was deported and never returned. In 2011, the State of Israel awarded the mother of Zanoli with the Righteous Among the Nations medal. In 2014, at age 91, Zanoli returned the medal to Israel after an Israeli air strike killed six family members who were living in Gaza; these people were in-laws of his grandniece, a diplomat, who is married to a

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

economist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zanoli, Henk 1923 births 2015 deaths Dutch resistance members Dutch Righteous Among the Nations People from Laren, North Holland