Cars Bijlstra · Willy Berends

The remarkable story of Reverend Leen Overduin who saved more than a thousand Dutch Jews during WWII.

Still, some eighty years after the liberation, facts and stories come to light about the Second World War that are hardly mentioned, if at all, in the official history books. That is true of Enschede, a city on the eastern border with Germany, with the most textile factories in the Netherlands, where all the yellow stars for the Dutch Jews were printed. The history of the organization of Reverend Leen Overduin that hid and saved more than a thousand persecuted Jews is one of the most impressive forgotten stories about moral courage, organizational prowess and taciturnity from those dark days. In the documentary film The Conscience of a City, four people tell their childhood story, of how they were saved by Overduin. Three of them Jews, one the child of a Dutch SS-man. The film reveals the extent of the work and the radical moral appeal Overduin did on his collaborators. It also shows how shockingly little was publicly known about this organization after the war. In the Jewish community in Enschede one was aware as early as the fall of 1941 that deported Jews were to meet a horrible fate. In revenge for an act of sabotage, the cutting of telephone lines, 67 young Jewish men from Enschede were deported to Mauthausen, where everybody died after a few months. The Jews in Enschede faced a difficult choice when the order came to report in Westerbork, a transit camp to the east. Were they to go, or did they lay their fate in the hands of reverend Overduin? About half of the Jews in Enschede chose Overduin and went into hiding. Not one of them was betrayed during the war, they all survived. This film focusses on the charismatic but introverted Leendert Overduin, who considered it an inescapable duty to support persecuted people, and asked to do the same from the members of his small protestant congregation. And successfully so. He was arrested multiple times, but was released every time. It was as if he transcended the war, imperturbable and silent. Many people in the city, including some dignitaries were aware of Overduin’s activities and supported him silently. He became the conscience of the city. He showed the same moral stance when after liberation the city Enschede (pop. 100.000) turned on the approximately 1000 nazi sympathizers. He protected the children of those families when they were persecuted. Not everybody could understand this. The Conscience of a City is an inspiring documentary featuring eye witnesses, family members and historians about a forgotten organization that saved many lives during World War Two. Overduin never wanted to accept awards or medals honoring his resistance work. Afterwards, he simply never spoke about the war. This caused his work to pass into obscurity. The Conscience of a City, finally reveals the true extent of the work of this resistance group. The film also tells the story of an unique and admirable human being, whose moral stance during those times still presents us with thorny and confronting questions.