00:00Arrondéus and his associates developed a plan which would become the greatest act of their
00:04resistance, bombing the registration office in Amsterdam and destroying those records.
00:09The goal of the attack was to destroy all the identity cards that had been issued by
00:13the Nazis.
00:14On the 26th of March, 1943, a group from the Dutch resistance movement, consisting of a
00:20number of artists, students, two young doctors, and Arrondéus who led them, entered the
00:24registration building in Amsterdam disguised as Dutch policemen.
00:27The doctors anesthetized the security guards with injections and placed them outside on
00:32the sidewalk.
00:33They chose a later hour while the registration office was empty, so no innocent people would
00:38be harmed.
00:39They destroyed as many papers as they could and planted a bomb in the building.
00:43Next morning, on the 27th of March, the bomb exploded, but it was only partially successful
00:49in destroying the civil registry, as only 15% of the records were completely destroyed.
00:55The reason was that they were difficult to burn.
00:57In total, 800,000 identity cards were destroyed, which saved the lives of thousands of people.
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