The 9th Annual International Congress of the PEN Club — Poets, Essayists, Novelists — in 1931 in the townhall of Rotterdam, Holland, with a focus on the Flemish writer Felix Timmermans, Dutch writer Dirk Coster (?), Dutch poet P.C. Boutens, Dutch writer Anthonetta (Top) Naeff, and in the final scene : the English author John Galsworthy (Nobel Prize Literature 1932) talking with the Dutch journalist and writer Lord Jan Feith, and the French author, critic and literary historian Benjamin Crêmieux — secretary of the French section of the PEN Club (see below).

From its inception in 1921, PEN was intended to be a non-political organisation. However, with the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and of fascism in Spain and Italy, it became increasingly difficult for PEN to stay away from the political; and that year 1931, the PEN Committee made a public ‘Appeal to All Governments’, which protested the plight of those imprisoned for political or religious reasons.

In 1940 Benjamin Crêmieux joined the French underground and became a leader of the Maquis resistance fighters.
In April 1943, two Gestapo agents detained Crémieux in Marseilles. He was arrested, imprisoned, and deported to Nazi Germany, where, in April 1944 he was executed in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Film edited from dutch Polygoon Hollands Nieuws cinema news reel week 14 , 1931 | Sound & Vision (Open Images).
Citation info : PEN Club 1931 | 20240112 | Miracles•Media | @michelvanderburg | TakeNode bed03c07-cc96-40cd-b917-0fc693bb55cd

Notes

P.E.N.-club . poets, playwrights, essayists, editors, novelists

PEN International. URL https://www.pen-international.org

Honderd jaar PEN (CLUB) Nederland: een beknopte geschiedenis. Liliane Waanders | Hanta. URL
https://www.hanta.nl/hanta/2023/04/10/honderd-jaar-pen-club-nederland-een-beknopte-geschiedenis/

A Brief History of PEN International. Cathal Sheerin. URL https://www.pen100archive.org/explore-the-exhibition/pen-internationals-history/

Benjamin Crémieux. Wikipedia. URL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Crémieux

Een sportieve jonkheer: Jan Feith en Den Haag. De Oud-Hagenaar- De krant voor de 50-plusser. Dinsdag 27 dec 2016. URL https://www.desportwereld.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016-12-27_Een-sportieve-jonkheer-Jan-Feith-en-Den-Haag_De-Oud-Hagenaar.pdf