Jhr. Elisa Ploos van Amstel
1896-1943

Elisa Ploos van Amstel as a Young man

Elisa Ploos van Amstel was born on March 29, 1896 in Wons, Friesland. He moved to the Dutch East Indies in 1915 where he first was employed by the BPM oil company. He moved on to work for the government's accounting services for two years, and then joined the accounting firm Tiedeman en Van Kerchem in 1919 and became a partner in 1932.

He served as Chairman of the Board of the Java Bank, was a director of the Nederlands Indische Escompto Bank, a director of the Nillmij Life Insurance Company, and a member of the council of the Christian Reformed Church in Jakarta.

Married to Maria Cornelia Floor, he was the father of five children - Gerard, Anneke, Maretta, Carla and Bob.

During the war he was jailed briefly by the occupying Japanese forces in May 1942 before being released with other business leaders to keep busineses and plantations operating. He used the opportunity to organize an underground support group for the wives and children of men who had been locked up in the prison camps.

Eventually he was ordered to do things that violated his conscience. He refused and along with 16 others were summarily executed on September 23, 1943. He was awarded the Verzetsster Oost-Azië posthumously.

See Also:

The Ultimate Punishment - an account of Opa Ploos's death written by Mom and published in the anthology Four Years Till Tomorrow published by Vanderheide Publishing Company.

Jhr. Elisa Ploos van Amstel - an account of Opa Ploos's death in Dutch by J. Ubels in the booklet Libertas ex Veritate a short book in tribute to 31 Dutchmen who died at the hands of the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) during World War II published in 1951 by Naamloze Vennootschap W. D. Meinema.

Opa Ploos van Amstel