KLUYVER AS PROFESSOR; CHRONICLES OF THE LABORATORY 



any instruction. He was often consulted about the difficult decisions 

 that the Technological University had to make during these years, and 

 his voice carried great authority. 



The role of leader in the resistance against the occupation was in- 

 compatible with Kluyver's character; but he was often a trusted ad- 

 viser to those who fought the German attacks on students and uni- 

 versities. He was deeply moved by the fate of hundreds of students who 

 had been deported to Germany as forced labourers, and he established 

 a bureau that endeavoured to remain in touch with each one of them. 

 By amassing information he succeeded in greatly improving the defi- 

 cient contacts with parents, and he acquired a fully documented 

 knowledge of the regrettable conditions under which work was being 

 done in many camps and industrial plants. This caused a strong pro- 

 test to be launched with the German authorities; alas, it was of no 

 avail. In many instances, only too frequently of a tragic nature, 

 Kluyver could lend moral support. 



The yeast factory, too, experienced hitherto unknown difficulties. 

 Kluyver learned about them when, in his capacity of adviser, he paid 

 his weekly visits to that community which consisted so largely of his 

 own pupils. But these visits were bright spots in his existence as well; 

 occasions on which he could share with his former coworkers such 

 simple pleasures as the daily cup of soup that was served in the plant 

 in those times of severe food rationing. And it filled him with pride 

 that during the last years of the war, when rumours about penicillin 

 had begun to penetrate from allied sources, a research team at the 

 yeast factory had managed to prepare batches of this 'wonder drug' 

 of such purity that they aroused Sir Alexander Fleming's unstinted 

 admiration. 



Anxiety about his own family added to all the other worries of these 

 troubled times, and Kluyver's vitality and health were progressively 

 undermined as a result of the food scarcity. Now and then he was 

 forced to go into hiding or, with great bodily exertion, to provide food 

 for his family. Delft was situated in the area known as 'Fortress Hol- 

 land', where, during the hunger winter of 1944- 1945, the horrors of 

 war ran rampant. Nevertheless, weakened and emaciated as he was, 

 he succeeded, with the aid of his faithful technician, Veenhoff, in 

 maintaining the valuable pure culture collection almost fully intact, 

 and this under circumstances that necessitated the improvisation of 



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