The Man Who Just Escaped Death Penalty
At the end of the nineteenth century, the Netherlands and Portugal, as the only European states, abolished the death penalty. The other European states did so much later. Today, if countries want to join the EU, they must abolish the death penalty. For that reason, Turkey did so in 2002. In the Netherlands, about ten years before the actual abolition, the sentence was no longer imposed by the court. So, one of the people who just escaped the death penalty was Johan Gaientaan.
Amsterdam, 1821. The water in the canals stinks very much, everyone pees in them and uses the water to do their laundry. Johan Gaientaan is born into a Roman Catholic family. Little is known about his early years. When he is 17 years old, he is arrested, together with an acquaintance, during a burglary in a house. He received a jail penalty for it for a few years. And you should not underestimate that: the hygienic conditions were bad, it was dark and you were often not allowed to speak to your fellow prisoners. He receives a warning: a sword is swung around over his head, as a sign that the death penalty is an option, if he continues his criminal life.
But Johan quickly gets angry. Also in prison. One day two fellow prisoners get into a fight and Johan gets involved. A tall, strong man slaps a smaller man, Johan takes off his clog and lashes out at the tall man. His wooden clog hits the man full on the head and he collapses. That same day the man dies of internal bleeding.
Johan gets a prison sentence for it, on top of the prison sentence he has already received for the burglary. He was released in 1843. But his free life does not last long; a few years later, he was caught stealing trousers and candles from a small shop in Amsterdam. He gets another prison sentence for it. After he goes to work in the port of the city.
Then it becomes quiet for a while around the criminal Amsterdammer. He goes to live in a narrow street in a small inn among whores, small cafes and beggars. Still Johan gets angry quickly. He gets into a fight with Marijtje, she also lives in the guest house. After a fierce exchange of words, she walks out into a courtyard. Johan has a knife in his hand. When Marijtje comes back in, Johan stabs her. She screams. A red trail traces her neck and her dress. She looks at him with wide eyes, she keeps screaming terribly. People come running. The woman is immediately taken away, the knife is taken from Johan. He has to answer to the judge again.
Now the sentence is quite harsh: ten years in jail in a notorious prison in Groningen, where all long-term prisoners have to sit. After ten long lonely years he is allowed to go outside again and he immediately returns to Amsterdam by carriage.
One day he meets a childhood sweetheart: Johanna. She is married to Cornelis, but Johan and Johanna secretly get a relationship.
When Cornelis dies, Johan moves in with Johanna. He promises to pay the rent for the small room, but when Johan is fired in the harsh winter of 1879, that no longer works. Only then does Johanna find out about Johan’s true, criminal life and understands why she has not seen him all those years: he was in jail. And again Johan flares up in an outburst and stabs his former childhood lover in her neck. She can just scream out the window “Murder!” when Johan flees outside. He throws the knife away, it falls on the ice of the frozen moat. But he reports himself to the police.
Because the death penalty was only abolished a few years ago, Johan does not receive it, but the highest possible punishment: life imprisonment. He appeals, but to no avail; the penalty remains the same. Three years later Johan dies in prison. He turns 60 years old. He spends more than half of his life in prison.
