During the Second World War the German occupants of the Netherlands made ample use of the Scheveningen prison near The Hague, popularly nicknamed the Oranjehotel . One former death cell in this infamous prison ( Doodencel 601 ) has been preserved in its original condition, showing wartime inscriptions on the cell walls. Interestingly, a small section of the wall has been re-plastered, presumably covering inscriptions. Here, we report on the visualization of this enigmatic text, which so far had

more »

... escaped the reach of historians. Our visualization methodology was threefold. First, we prepared a cross-section from a drill core to determine the cell-wall stratigraphy. Second, we prepared a physical model wall, mimicking the layering of the original cell wall. Third, we tested a combination of raking-light photography and infrared thermography on the model wall. Applying this methodology on the original wall revealed the inscriptions, including the author's name Daniël de Blocq van Scheltinga , a prominent Nazi collaborator, as well as a calendar and an important date of his post-war trial in the fall of 1945. Our visualizations flawlessly dovetail with archival findings. Together, they offer an intimate view of an early post-war inmate of the Scheveningen prison, whose message was covered up once the cell was transformed into a war monument in 1946.