The building which now houses the Allard Pierson Museum used to be the Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank. When Germany invaded the Netherlands, the gold from the vaults was taken to England. What remained were treasury bills, or Dutch state securities. In 1944, young bankers’ son Walraven van Hall, together with his brother Gijs, managed to exchange these treasury bills for forged ones. The real securities were cashed in and provided the resistance movement with more than 50 million guilders.
Van Hall had been in covert contact with the Dutch government in exile in London about this bank fraud. The Resistance Museum has a microfiche in its collection on which the government in London gives Walraven van Hall permission for a loan of millions to the resistance movement.
Illustration 1: The Allard Pierson Museum
Illustration 2: In the exhibition at the Resistance Museum: desk with the microfiche
