Torture of resistance fighters
The street name grew into a notorious expression. If someone snarled at you: "You're going to the Euterpestraat", it rarely meant anything good. The street name carried something of the dread of a 'terminus'. The SD prison was indeed used to interrogate detainees, quite literally, within an inch of their lives. Various Amsterdam resistance fighters were held and tortured here.
British bombs on the school
The location was clearly in the enemy's sights, because in 1944 British bombs fell on the SD headquarters. As far as the prison was concerned, the bombs only partly hit their target: the side of the building was lightly damaged. Across the street, however, there was a direct hit, on the building that housed the German leadership of the persecution of Amsterdam's Jews. Houses were also damaged in the raid.
A tainted name
After the war the street name Euterpestraat had become too tainted. A new name was not sought in the neighbourhood's theme of sporting gods and heroes from Greek mythology, but in a leader of the resistance: Gerrit van der Veen. He had not survived the war. Besides the street, the old girls' HBS, the building where the SS had carried out its terror, was given a new name too: the Gerrit van der Veen College.
