De Zessprong; the Adventures of Frits Gies

The German cannon at De Zessprong had disappeared, but a Feldwebel (non-commissioned officer) was still moving behind a window. It was only when Frits was taken away in a Canadian jeep and pointed him out that the German surrendered, just as a tank had its barrel trained on De Zessprong. In his book Bist du ein Jude? (2020), Gies describes how he became involved in the resistance through his father, a specialist in forging documents. Wearing a fake Hitler Youth uniform, he occasionally managed to deceive the Germans. The Gies family gave shelter to many German-Jewish people in hiding in Zutphen.

In 1944, five German soldiers also stayed with the family, among them Arnold Graf von Keyserlin, a great-grandson of Bismarc, who had no sympathy for Nazism. Through his Wehrmacht unit, he helped arrange bread and coal for the family. Their holiday home, located between Lochem and Warnsveld and also used as a hiding place, was later transferred to the Dutch Open Air Museum in Arnhem due to its historical significance.