Reina Prinsen Geerligs (7 October 1922 - 24 November 1943) was a member of the

Dutch Resistance The Dutch resistance () to the History of the Netherlands (1939–1945), German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized as non-violent. The primary organizers were the Communist Party of the Netherlands, C ...

during World War II. After the war the literary was created in her memory.

Biography

Reina Prinsen Geerligs was born in 1922 in

Semarang Semarang (Javanese script, Javanese: , ''Kutha Semarang'') is the capital and largest city of Central Java province in Indonesia. It was a major port during the Netherlands, Dutch Dutch East Indies, colonial era, and is still an important regio ...

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

, the daughter of the chemist Johan Prinsen Geerligs and his wife Helen Carolina Zon. She had a brother who was two years younger. They moved to Amsterdam when she was still very young. In the Netherlands, Prinsen Geerligs was a member of the Youth Organisation for the Study of Nature, and she started writing poetry and prose. But when the war started, she mostly stopped writing and concentrated on her work with the resistance, initially mainly as a courier. Her house became the meeting place for resistance group CS-6, and Reina Prinsen Geerligs became involved with at least two assassination attempts. In 1943 she and Louis Boissevain tried to kill police officer Pieter Kaay, but stopped the attempt when they saw Kaay seated with a child in his lap. Another group executed him the next day. Prinsen Geerligs was arrested on 23 July 1943, and confessed to her work as a resistance fighter. In November 1943 she and some other members of the resistance group were transported to

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners t ...

, where they were executed the next day.

Reina Prinsen Geerligs Award

Prinsen Geerligs' parents only learned of her death in 1946. With the money they had set apart to finance her studies, they created a fund for a literary award in her honour, the Reina Prinsen Geerligs Award. The prize was given to a young writer between the ages of 20 and 25, and was won by some of the most prominent Dutch writers at the start of their career, including

Gerard Reve Gerard Kornelis van het Reve (14 December 1923 – 8 April 2006) was a Dutch writer. He started writing as Simon Gerard van het Reve and adopted the shorter Gerard Reve in 1973. Together with Willem Frederik Hermans and Harry Mulisch, he i ...

and

Harry Mulisch Harry Kurt Victor Mulisch (; 29 July 192730 October 2010) was a Dutch writer. He wrote more than 80 novels, plays, essays, poems, and philosophical reflections. Mulisch's works have been translated into 38 languages so far. Along with Willem Fre ...

. It was last awarded in 1979. *1947:

*1948: Mies Bouhuys *1949: Willem Witkampf *1950:

Jan Blokker Jan Andries Blokker Sr. (27 May 1927 – 6 July 2010) was a Dutch journalist, columnist, publicist, writer, and amateur historian. In The Netherlands, Blokker was best known for his columns in ''De Volkskrant'', which he wrote between 1968 and 2 ...

*1951:

*1952: Kees Stempels *1953:

Remco Campert Remco Campert (28 July 1929 – 4 July 2022) was a Dutch author, poet and columnist. Early years Remco Wouter Campert was born in The Hague, son of writer and poet Jan Campert, author of the poem ''De achttien dooden'', and actress Joekie Bro ...

*1953: Ellen Warmond *1954:

Henk Meijer Henk Meijer (born 22 July 1959) is a Dutch taekwondo coach and former Olympic taekwondo competitor.Meijer, H. (''c.'' 2006)Taste and Person Retrieved on 12 May 2010. He was the men's heavyweight champion at the 7th World Taekwondo Championships ...

*1955: W.G. Klooster *1956: Winny Pendèl *1959:

J. Bernlef Hendrik Jan Marsman (14 January 1937 – 29 October 2012), better known by his pen name, J. Bernlef, was a Dutch writer, poet, novelist and translator, much of whose work centres on mental perception of reality and its expression. He won numerou ...

*1960: A.P. van Hoek *1961:

Peter van Gestel Peter van Gestel (3 August 1937, Amsterdam – 1 March 2019, Amsterdam) was a Dutch writer. Career Writing Van Gestel made his debut in 1962 with ''Drempelvrees'', a collection of stories. He received the Reina Prinsen Geerligsprijs for ...

*1962: Steven Membrecht *1964: Kees Holierhoek *1965: Henk van Kerkwijk *1967: Eddy van Vliet *1968: Hans Vlek *1970: Arie van den Berg *1972:

Willem Jan Otten Willem Jan Otten (October 4, 1951-) is a Dutch prose writer, playwright and poet, who in 2014 won the P. C. Hooft Award for lifetime literary achievement. Biography Otten was born in Amsterdam as the son of the musicians Marijke Ferguson and Kees ...

*1973: Frans Kusters *1976:

Oek de Jong Oebele Klaas Anne (Oek) de Jong (born 4 October 1952 in Breda) is a Dutch novelist. He debuted in 1976 with ''De hemelvaart van Massimo'', a collection of short stories for which he received the Reina Prinsen Geerligsprijs. In 1980 he won th ...

*1976: Jotie T'Hooft *1979:

Leon de Winter Leon de Winter (born 26 February 1954) is a Dutch novelist and columnist. Early life Leon de Winter was born on 24 February 1954 in Den Bosch, in the southern Netherlands. He grew up in a Jewish Orthodox family and attended City Grammar Sc ...

*?:

Breyten Breytenbach Breyten Breytenbach (; 16 September 193924 November 2024) was a South African writer, poet, and painter. He became internationally well-known as a dissident poet and vocal critic of South Africa under apartheid, and as a political prisoner of ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prinsen Geerligs, Reina 1922 births 1943 deaths Dutch resistance members Dutch people executed by Nazi Germany People who died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp People from Semarang Female resistance members of World War II Dutch people of the Dutch East Indies

Biography

Reina Prinsen Geerligs Award

References

Further reading

External links