Resistance Fighters Identified by DNA Analysis
In March 2013, the special cooperation among the Recovery Unit of the Royal Netherlands Army, the Netherlands National Missing Persons Bureau (LBVP) of the National Police, the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), the Netherlands Red Cross, and the Netherlands War Graves Foundation (OGS) resulted in the identification of two unknown resistance fighters who had been missing since World War II.
Familial DNA searching
The persons concerned are Nicolaas Corstanje from The Hague and Nicolaas van der Horst from Amsterdam. During the exhumation of their human remains, the NFI sampled DNA from bones and teeth. The DNA was compared to the DNA profiles in the DNA database of missing persons. This comparison produced matches with the DNA that had been made available by relatives of both men. Corstanje’s DNA matched the DNA of his 88-year old sister; Van der Horst could be identified due to the match with the DNA provided by a close relative.
Giving unknown persons back their names
In the Netherlands, it is often the case that surviving relatives of missing persons – whether war victims and otherwise – remain in uncertainty about the fates of their loved ones. DNA analysis of unknown dead persons may provide clarity about the fates of these people, such as in the case of resistance fighters Corstanje and Van der Horst. The DNA database of missing persons, which has been established specifically for this type of analysis, includes about 900 DNA profiles of missing persons, their relatives, and unidentified human remains. In the year 2013 alone, nearly twenty unknown dead persons have been given back their identity in this way.
Related fields of expertise with respect to determining identity
The NFI is able to employ several analysis methods to find out a person’s identity. In addition to DNA analysis, the NFI may decide to carry out an anthropological analysis or an isotope analysis.
Anthropological analysis
The forensic anthropologist analyses body parts and bones (cremated bones and otherwise). On the basis of this analysis, he builds a biological profile that includes information about, among other things, the gender and estimated age of the person at the time of death. He also analyses the bones for traces and damage.
Isotope analysis
An isotope analysis may give information about the region where the unknown dead person used to live, and about the area in which he spent the last months of his life. It is not possible to use this analysis to immediately establish the identity of the person, but the information obtained may give direction to the tactical follow-up analysis.
Case examples
The Rose Girl: in 1996, an unknown woman was buried in Grubbenvorst, in the province of Limburg. The identity of this ‘Rose Girl’, whose human remains had been found in the woods near the rose village of Lottum, was finally established fourteen years later. Relatives of Josefa, as the woman’s name turned out to be, were able to rebury her in Poland in the autumn of 2010.
The Heul Girl: in 1976, a girl was found dead at lay-by ‘De Heul’ on the A12 in Maarsbergen. New techniques have shed new light on this matter. It has been established that the girl originated from the German Eiffel area, as emerged from an examination into the origin of the girl on the basis of isotopes, which was conducted by VU University Amsterdam upon the request of the NFI.