'Let's don't think that we can learn this in 20 days'

My plans to terminate this blog are not going according to plan.

This blog accumulating the information and telling the story of Jan de Jong has and is attracting contributions from those who knew him and/or trained under him. The latest is a membership card from JDJ's school in Rotterdam in 1946.

Would love a current photo, and even a 1940s photo, of Leede 60, Rotterdam Zuid.

 The left hand side says: Please bring this card with you every first lesson of the month.

The right hand side says: The development of jiu jitsu has taken 20 decades. So lets don’t think that we can learn this in 20 days.

The card is dated 1946 and is number 69. 

The card is for Kees (Cees) Kranendonk. The Nationale Veteranen Commissie Budo in Holland published a eulogy for Kees on their Facebook page as he passed away this month. It would appear that he was still active in judo in Holland. Nearly 75 years in jujutsu and judo starting with JDJ right after WWII ended. JDJ would be chuffed.

 This photo is apparently a young Piet Hesselink who JDJ handed his school over to when he left Holland for Indonesia. Hesselink was reputedly the first shodan that JDJ graded.

This photo is reproduced for atmospherics about the time period we are discussing. It is of JDJ and Rienier Hulsk who he trained with when he arrived in Holland in 1940 before teaching for him and ultimately branching out with his own school.

One of the photos in the set with JDJ and RH has been reproduced in Naverteld verleden: Jiujitsu in het verzet in Nederland 1940-1945 (Retold past: Jiujitsu in the 1940-1945 resistance) by J.H.G. Smits. Most of the information in that book about JDJ was taken from this blog.