By Goya Dmytryshchak
Altona’s first shire president from an immigrant background, Gerardus “Gerry” den Dulk (8-11-1923 – 11-8-2019), was last week honoured by Hobsons Bay council.
Mr den Dulk’s daughter Betty Brown and her husband Dennis Brown attended last week’s council meeting as mayor Jonathon Marsden read out a moving tribute.
Born in Scheveningen, Netherlands, Mr den Dulk was part of the Dutch resistance during World War 2.
“As a member of the Dutch underground, Gerry helped establish the first link between occupied Holland and the Dutch government in England in May 1940,” Cr Marsden told the meeting.
“He was captured and sent as slave labour to Germany in 1942 but escaped, survived the war by going into hiding for two years in Holland, and was tried by German court [in absentia]and sentenced to death for sabotage.”
Mr den Dulk and his wife, Leny, started a new life in Australia, first at a camp in Bathurst and later moving into a bungalow in Altona before building their own home.
He worked at the Mobil refinery in the mid 1950s and was badly burned in a fire in which a fellow worker died.
He was elected to the Altona Shire council in 1959 and served three terms, and in 1963 became the first person from a non-English speaking country elected president.
He and his wife owned a green grocer on the corner of Civic Parade and Millers Road.
Mr den Dulk opened the Hobsons Bay civic centre and unveiled the chamber dome with then opposition leader Arthur Calwell (pictured sitting next to Mr den Dulk in the newly-opened council chamber).
Speaking after the meeting, Mrs Brown was moved to tears by the tribute to her late father.
“He would be very chuffed,” she said.
“He had a real strong love for politics … he had a really strong passion for it, and also to try and do the right thing for people,” she said.
Mr Brown said, “basically, he was a pure gentleman.”
