Suicide
By March, Ter Braak's money was running out and he had to change the dollar bills through a fellow lodger who worked at a bank. At the end of the month he no longer had the money to pay his landlady. On 29 March he deposited a large case in the left luggage office at Cambridge station, and went to the air raid shelter where he committed suicide using an Abwehr-issue pistol. His body was not found until 1 April; the possessions found on him included a forged identity card also carrying numbers issued by SNOW which had obvious errors, a Dutch passport without an immigration stamp, and 1/9d in cash. The case at the station was found to contain a radio transmitter.
Ter Braak's story was suppressed at the time. An inquest was held in camera; its findings were released, along with other information about him, on 9 September 1945.
Read more about this topic: Willem Ter Braak
Famous quotes containing the word suicide:
“If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)
“However great a man’s fear of life, suicide remains the courageous act, the clear-headed act of a mathematician. The suicide has judged by the laws of chance—so many odds against one that to live will be more miserable than to die. His sense of mathematics is greater than his sense of survival. But think how a sense of survival must clamour to be heard at the last moment, what excuses it must present of a totally unscientific nature.”
—Graham Greene (1904–1991)
“When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)