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B2 Spy Radio Set

h 16 cm x w 52 cm 
1942-1945

Walking down the street with a suitcase isn’t particularly unusual and it wasn’t during the war either. It was, however, a different story if the case contained an illegal radio transmitter. Many Resistance fighters risked their lives to maintain contact with a free England using a B2-transmitter.

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The Amsterdam Resistance fighter Krijn Dolman Jr. listening to a radio hidden under the floorboards in his brother’s house in 1944 (source: Beeldbank WO2 – NIOD).
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Some individuals were trained in England and dropped back into the Netherlands as secret agents to gather strategic information about the German occupation. It was too dangerous to transmit from a permanent spot. The Germans actively went after these illegal radios and whoever was caught, risked the death penalty. Secret messages about for instance weapons being dropped were passed via Morse code: a series of short and long beeps transmitted the text letter by letter. Originally these transmitters were hidden in an English brand of luggage. But because the Germans soon recognized these cases, members of the Resistance switched to carrying these spy radio sets in suitcases made in the Netherlands.