Anton de Kom
| Anton de Kom | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Cornelis Gerhard Anton de Kom 22 February 1898 Paramaribo, Suriname |
| Died | 24 April 1945 (aged 47) Sandbostel, Germany |
Cornelis Gerhard Anton de Kom (22 February 1898 – 24 April 1945) was a Surinamese resistance fighter and anti-colonialist author.
De Kom was born in Paramaribo, Suriname, to farmer Adolf de Kom and Judith Jacoba Dulder. His father was born a slave. As was not uncommon, his surname is a reversal of the slave owner's name, who was called Mok.
De Kom finished primary and secondary school and obtained a diploma in bookkeeping. He worked for the Balata Compagnieën Suriname en Guyana. On 29 July 1920 he resigned and left for Haiti where he worked for the Societé Commerciale Hollandaise Transatlantique. In 1921, he left for the Netherlands. He volunteered for the Huzaren (a Dutch cavalry regiment) for a year. In 1922 he started working for a consultancy in The Hague. One year later he was laid off due to a reorganization. He then became a sales representative selling coffee, tea and tobacco for a company in The Hague, where he met his future wife, Nel. In addition to his work, he was active in numerous left-wing organizations, including nationalist Indonesian student organisations and Links Richten (Aim Left).
De Kom and his family left for Suriname on 20 December 1932 and arrived on 4 January 1933. From that moment on he was closely watched by the colonial authorities. He started a consultancy in his parents' house. On 1 February he was arrested while en route to the governor's office with a large group of followers. On both 3 and 4 February his followers gathered in front of the Attorney General's office to demand De Kom's release. On 7 February a large crowd gathered on the Oranjeplein (currently called the Onafhankelijkheidsplein). Rumor had it that De Kom was about to be released. When the crowd refused to leave the square, police opened fire, killing two people and wounding 30.
On 10 May De Kom was sent to the Netherlands without trial and exiled from his native country. He was unemployed and continued writing his book, Wij slaven van Suriname (We Slaves of Suriname) which was published in a censored form in 1934. De Kom participated in demonstrations for the unemployed, traveled abroad with a group as a tap dancer, and was drafted for Werkverschaffing (unemployment relief work), a program similar to the American WPA, in 1939. He gave lectures for leftist groups, mainly communists, about colonialism and racial discrimination.
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