Jaap van Praag

PRAAG, JAAP VAN (1911-1981), Dutch organizer and theoretician of organized HUMANISM. Jaap van Praag was born on May 11, 1911, in Amsterdam. He grew up in a secular Jewish and socialist family. Mainly through his mother and by much reading he acquired considerable knowledge of the Bible. He studied Dutch literature, philosophy, and history, and became a teacher in a secondary school. Until World War II he was extremely active in pacifist and socialist associations, concentrating mainly on peace-related issues and non-violent resistance. In these associations he met many people who were later also to become active in the humanist movement. As a Jew, he was obliged to go into hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940-1945), which he did from 1943. The horrors of the war were essential to forming his later militancy and worldview. He went back to teaching from 1946 to 1954. From 1954 to 1974 he was on the executive board of the provincial government of South Holland.