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By David F. Dawes
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| In a scene from Refuge of Lies, Rudi Vanderwaal is forced to confront accusations of
World War II crimes. Pictured: Terence Kelly and Anna Hagan. Photo: Tim Matheson. |
FOR YEARS, a war criminal hid behind the respectable veneer of academia and
church life in Vancouver.
The latest production of Pacific Theatre (PT) is based on this complex and
dramatic true story. According to PT, the story deals with “conscience, grace and consequence.”
Refuge of Lies, written and directed by acclaimed actor (and PT artistic director) Ron Reed,
takes a fresh look at familiar ideas.
As PT describes the drama, protagonist Rudi Vanderwaal “is a quietly retired man whose religious conversion may hide terrible wartime
secrets. When a Dutch journalist travels to Vancouver to confront him with the
realities of his past, memory and fantasy, dream and nightmare collide in a
searing vision of guilt and the cost of redemption.”
The real-life protagonist was Jacob Luitjens, a convicted war criminal who hid
his Nazi past during his sojourn in Vancouver as a professor at the University
of British Columbia (UBC).
Luitjens, according to Wikipedia, “was a Dutch collaborator during World War II. He was nicknamed ‘The terror of Roden,’ as he was active in and around Roden.”
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According to The Jewish Post & News, Luitjens “was arrested in 1945 immediately after Holland was liberated from the Nazis. He
managed to escape in 1947 from the detention camp where he was held.”
As Wikipedia picks up the narrative, three years after the war ended, “he was convicted in absentia to life imprisonment. Luitjens evaded this
punishment by fleeing to Paraguay, aided by Mennonites, using the name ‘Gerhard Harder.’ After that, he emigrated to Canada in 1961, where he became a successful
professor of botany.”
Nazi-hunter Jack Kooistra “managed to track down Luitjens in 1992. Luitjens was stripped of his Canadian
citizenship and was deported to the Netherlands.
“At a court in Assen, he was convicted to an imprisonment of 28 months. He served
this term, until March 1995 in a prison in Groningen. Afterwards, the Canadian
government forbade his return to Canada. Luitjens is without a nationality
since then.”
BCCN covered the controversy at the time, focusing on division in the Christian
community concerning Luitjens’ guilt.
UBC’s student newspaper, The Ubyssey, also covered the story, beginning a series of articles March 1, 1983. The
first headline read: ‘Admin quiet on alleged Nazi.’
PT publicist Andrea Loewen told BCCN that Reed “was inspired to write the play based on these stories and events. The character of Rudi follows the facts about Luitjens in the following ways:
“He is Dutch; he changed his name after the war to escape to Paraguay (with the
Mennonites), where he converted to become a Mennonite; he changed his name back
when he came to Vancouver; taught at UBC; was found by a Dutch reporter; and
had his community take sides for or against him.”
Refuge of Lies runs April 9 – May 1 at Pacific Theatre. To reserve tickets, contact: 604.731.5518 or pacifictheatre.org.
April 2010
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