Lau Mazirel

Laura "Lau" Carola Mazirel (29 November 1907 in Utrecht – 20 November 1974 in Saint-Martin-de-la-Mer, France) was a member of the Dutch resistance during World War II who helped organise the 1943 bombing of the Amsterdam civil registry office. An attorney, she was an early proponent of LGBT rights and the rights of Romani people. She opposed civil marriage due to the then-inferior status of women, and also opposed registration of personal information, which she considered a violation of privacy.

Biography Pre-war period Mazirel was a daughter of pacifists who helped refugees during World War I. She was raised in Gennep in the southern province of Limburg. In 1917, the family moved to Utrecht, where Mazirel found employment as a teacher, and also studied law and psychology. After her graduation in 1929, she moved to Amsterdam, where she became an active member of the social democratic student organisation Sociaal Democratische Studenten Club (SDSC) and the social democratic party Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij (SDAP). She also helped refugees from Nazi Germany.

In 1943–1945, the Germans raided her law firm three times. During the second and third time, people hiding there were discovered and arrested. Mazirel played an active part in the rescue of Jewish children from the Hollandsche Schouwburg deportation centre, and managed to take some children off the transport trains at the station. She even jumped on trains at marshalling yard Rietland to free children from the transport trains.

The Lau Mazirelbrug, a bridge across Plantage Muidergracht canal in Amsterdam, was named after her in 1982. A year later, a street in Amsterdam was also named after her, the Lau Mazirelstraat. The cities of The Hague, Leiden, Beverwijk and Spijkenisse also have streets named after her. During the annual Remembrance of the Dead on 4 May, a floral wreath is placed on the bridge.