Black Book (Zwartboek): Resistance in The Hague

In 1944 Rachel Stein is hiding in the occupied Netherlands when an Allied bomber destroys the farmhouse that shelters her. That sets the whole story moving. For the opening scene the production did not build a set: a real pre-war farm in the municipality of Hardenberg was blown up on camera. Hardenberg is a city and municipality in the province of Overijssel.

Location precision: The film does not name the farm's location; the pin marks the city of Hardenberg, where the real farm was blown up.

Rachel and her family board a boat meant to carry refugees to the liberated south. German SS ambush it, kill the passengers and rob the bodies. Rachel alone survives. The ambush echoes real history: Verhoeven notes that crossing attempts really took place in the Biesbosch. Some of the underwater explosions were filmed in a lake near Giethoorn, the village often called the "Venice of the Netherlands" for its canals.

Location precision: Only the underwater explosions are documented near Giethoorn; the pin marks the village, not a specific lake.

Under the name Ellis de Vries, Rachel joins a resistance group in The Hague led by Gerben Kuipers. At a party at SD headquarters she recognises Obersturmführer Günther Franken as the officer behind the boat massacre. Then she takes a job inside the building. The German headquarters really were in The Hague, and the film shot its SD exterior on the Plein, a square in the city centre laid out in 1632. Bunkers were built there to hide modern objects.

Visitor guidance: The Plein is a public square in central The Hague.

Inside the SD building Ellis wins a job while falling in love with Ludwig Müntze, the local SD commander. The hall of the SD office was filmed far from The Hague, at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, an ethnographic museum now called the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam.

The resistance plans to rescue its captured members, and Ellis agrees to help only if Müntze is freed too. But the plan is betrayed, and the rescuers find the prisoners' cells filled with German troops. Only Akkermans and one other man escape. The prison scenes were filmed in the former chemistry faculty building of Delft University of Technology, so the film's cell block is a university building in Delft.

Location precision: The pin marks the Delft University of Technology campus, not the specific faculty building.

After liberation Ellis learns that Akkermans is the traitor. With Kuipers she intercepts him, hiding in a coffin in a hearse with the stolen gold and jewels. They drive to Hollands Diep, where the original SS trap had been sprung, and wait until he suffocates. Hollands Diep is a river in the Netherlands and an estuary of the Rhine and Meuse rivers.

Location precision: The film names the Hollands Diep estuary but no exact spot; the pin marks the waterway.