New book tells story of WWII resistance man Taconis

ROTTERDAM - ‘A Relatively Intense Character’ is the title of a book on Thijs Taconis, who worked for the Dutch Resistance until his arrest in 1942. He and many other intelligence agents were killed in the Mauthausen death camp two years later. Rotterdam-born physics student Taconis had sailed for England shortly after the May capitulation of the Netherlands. In England he was trained for underground work. He parachuted back into occupied the Netherlands in 1941. Taconis left the Dutch government a large financial legacy. In 1950, the inheritance was used to create the Silver Carnation Fund, in recognition of those people who devote themselves to Dutch or Dutch Antilles culture. The fund was chaired by Prince Bernhard, who shortly before his death in 2004, wrote the foreword of this book by Astrid Waltmans.