Last, Jef, 1898-1972

Josephus Carel Franciscus (Jef) Last (2 May 1898 in The Hague – 15 February 1972 in Laren) was a Dutch poet, writer, translator and cosmopolitan. Jef Last was a writer and socially compassionate man. Having a Protestant father and a Catholic mother, he was raised in the Protestant tradition. However, he was already a member of the SDAP and the "AJC" at a very young age. With these principles, he could not practice as an assistant manager of the Enka in Ede, leading to his resignation. He left the revisionist social democracy to become a member of Henk Sneevliet's Revolutionary Socialist Party. With his revolutionary friend André Gide, he traveled in the summer of 1936 to the Soviet Union. The pair was well received, but saw through the organized tribute and returned to the west disillusioned. Last wrote a book about his friendship with Gide. He last fought in the Spanish Civil War in the International Brigades, fighting on the side of the Spanish Republic. As a result, he lost his Dutch citizenship because of his military service to a foreign power. Shortly after the Second World War, his citizenship was returned due to his participation in the Dutch resistance. From 1950 to 1953, he lived in Indonesia, particularly in Singaraja (Bali), where he worked as a teacher at a secondary school. He was friends with the country’s president Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta.