Jan Kok worked for many years as a head teacher in Utrecht and, from 1940 onwards, also taught at the NS training college. As a socially engaged man, he served, among other things, as secretary of a local Masonic lodge. His anti-German stance and small, concrete acts of resistance — safeguarding the lodge’s archives, distributing illegal leaflets and passing on messages from Radio Oranje — brought him to the attention of the occupying forces. He kept patriotic symbols intact in his school and provided teaching space for Jewish children who had been concentrated at his school. On 22 May 1942, he lost his post and official residence by order of the municipality; he subsequently worked for the railways, but his family life changed radically.
