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In 2022, Korpora, the Public Safety Heritage Centre opened – tasked with acquiring, managing and exhibiting physical and digital collections on public safety in the Netherlands. Today, Korpora includes the national collections of the Dutch police and the fire service, the Dutch Red Cross and the former Civil Defence service. Korpora's roots go back to the early 20th century, when firefighting and police enthusiasts began collecting heritage items from these organisations and putting them on display. Despite setbacks due to a lack of funding and a suitable home for the objects, as well as a lack of historical awareness within those organisations, a great deal of heritage items still managed to be preserved. Thanks to the dozen or so foundations – some already in existence, some set up later – the heritage has been preserved, expanded and ultimately culminated in Korpora's rich and astounding subcollections.

Since poison gas was used during World War I, long-range bombers had been introduced and tensions were rising in Europe, the Air Raid Precautions Act was passed in the Netherlands in 1936. The legislation emphasised individual responsibility for self-protection. This meant that citizens had to buy a gas mask themselves. The Gas Mask Decree (1937) required all gas mask models for Civil Defence units and civilians to be approved by the Dutch State Arsenal. Facepieces and filter canisters had to be marked with the State Acceptance Number and year(s) of approval and production. This paper identifies and describes the gas masks used by police, fire brigades, Civil Defence units and individual citizens, 1931-1940. Three models are heavy, regular Army box respirators, whose filter containers are worn in a haversack on the chest. All the other models are lighter civilian gas masks, with an easily replaceable screw-on filter canister attached to the facepiece. The gas masks were carried in a basic satchel or cylindrical metal case. Two Dutch-made gas masks have a peculiar design: the Veritex gas mask's facepiece has a swimcap type hood; the Hevea-Electro Model 128 gas mask's facepiece has no outlet valve. Air is inhaled and exhaled through the filter canister.

The fire brigade was the first to dispatch emergency teams to the disaster area and provide assistance day and night, thanks to its omnipresence and versatility. This meant that local, voluntary firefighters were probably among the first rescue workers to fall victim. This contribution thrusts the fire brigade as a rescue service during the flood into the spotlight. This shows both the initial and the subsequent assistance provided by local fire brigades and additional units from outside the disaster area. Research has shown that the role played by the Dutch fire service – not to mention the Italian fire brigade –was massive and hugely significant, especially considering they worked under very dire circumstances and with limited resources.

Marine painting, paintings of ships and the sea, is a four hundred year old traditional Dutch art discipline. In the nineteenth century the genre had a special artistic prestige and status. This study explores the background, training, studio practice, stylistic development and subject matters of the Dutch nineteenth-century marine painter. A Reference List of Marine Painters, which is a new overview of the true specialists in the genre in this period, is added. The key question is how marine painting was looked at by the marine painters themselves, their fellow painters at the artists associations, in art theory and in art criticism. It turns out that within Dutch art circles throughout the nineteenth century, marine painting was perceived as a bearer of national pride. By placing the genre in a broader cultural-historical context it reveals how marine painting, together with the glorification of maritime history, was embedded in nationalist ideology.

Dit boek vertelt het verhaal van de Europese slavernijgeschiedenis vanuit een Zuid-Hollands perspectief. Van de zestiende tot de negentiende eeuw speelde de koloniale wereld een steeds belangrijkere rol in de economie van Holland. De provincie werd een draaischijf voor Europese goederen, kapitaal, arbeid en kennis. Vooraanstaande Zuid-Hollandse regenten als Johan de Witt spanden zich in voor de slavenhandel. In de negentiende eeuw zorgde raciaal denken bij Zuid-Hollandse politici zoals Jan Willem Gefken of James Loudon voor het in stand houden van de koloniale hiërarchie en het uitbuiten van koloniale onderdanen.

On 13 March 1908, the National Bureau for the Collection of Data on the Trade in Women and Girls was founded. The 47-year-old H.J.A. Simons de Ruyter was appointed National Police Commissioner. He proved to be the best person for the job owing to his passion for gathering and recording vital data, his knowledge of languages and his dedicated, helpful and generous personality. The Bureau and the police worked with women's organisations to monitor activities and carry out checks at stations and ports where women and girls who could be exposed to a lewd lifestyle might be travelling. After legislation on morality was passed in 1911, the Bureau was given an additional task in 1914 to tackle trade in lewd publications. After the First World War erupted that year, there was not much more to do at the Bureau, which led Simons de Ruyter to support the immigration authorities in Amsterdam at his own request. This consisted mainly of finding accommodation, providing healthcare, food, clothing and financial assistance and helping to repatriate Belgian refugees.

In 1869, Dutch military doctor Cornelis de Mooy invented the litter, 'raderbaar', a stretcher on wheels. It was a major improvement in several ways compared with the old brancards. It was comfortable for patients and only one hospital soldier was needed to move the wounded. Starting with the Aceh Wars (1873-1910), it became a huge medical success in the military as well as the civilian world. It was gradually replaced around the 1920s. The litter – and some other inventions he made – hugely reduced the wounded soldiers' suffering and because of this De Mooy was praised by many as a great humanitarian, but in fact it was military efficiency that drove him. A better, swifter and less strenuous way of transporting the wounded was a means of improving military capabilities.

The Cold War was a tense time. The Netherlands took precautions to protect its people from potential disasters, in particular nuclear threats. One crucial aspect of this was the establishment of the Civil Defence Corps. The organisation played a key role in setting up command stations and training centres, such as the one in Overvoorde, Rijswijk, near The Hague, which ran exercises and training to prepare people for possible disasters. From large practice ruins to advanced alarm systems, the complex was fully equipped to deal with a broad range of threats. Although the threat of a nuclear attack subsided and the Civil Defence was officially disbanded in 1985, these command stations retained their importance. Many of them have since been repurposed, from storage sites to museums. The bunkers in Overvoorde now serve as an educational centre under the management of Korpora, the Public Safety Heritage Centre. By preserving these sites, we can ensure that future generations can learn from the past and the sacrifices that were made for their safety.

This article contains the personal account of Sergeant Reinder van de Put of the national police force, based on his correspondence after he was sent to the area affected by the 1953 North Sea flood. It first focuses on the unique letters and photographs that Reinder sent home from where he was deployed in Nieuw-Helvoet. These documents provide an insight into the national police's work there and his personal experiences. The article describes what the national police faced one month on from the disaster and also provides an insight into the impact of the disaster on Reinder and his colleagues in Doornspijk, who were very close with each other – not only in how they stood together in solidarity but also how they supported each other.

After the occupation by German troops in May 1940, the German authorities demanded the Dutch fire service be remodelled in line with their own example. In Germany, firefighting had been a police task since 1938. Fire service columns were formed to stop the spread of large-scale fires after air attacks. A great deal of organisation was needed to deploy the large number of pumps, men and large quantities of water. In the Netherlands two mobile columns were formed, which ultimately comprised about 1200 men in two large units, each consisting of four companies with a total of 223 vehicles. The firefighters were trained in the German way and became highly disciplined. The units were deployed after air raids on Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Haarlem in 1943, and Nijmegen and The Hague in 1944. From February 1944, however, the Dutch units were also sent to help in different German cities under attack. The Dutch fire service columns were stationed in eight depots in The Hague, Rotterdam, Baarn, Weesp, Deurne and Winterswijk. The last of the Dutch column was disbanded and sent to the German Fire Service School in Beeskow near Berlin in September 1944.