Content area
Abstract
(The United States only issued its first semi-postal stamp in 1998, Scott #B1, to promote breast cancer research.) The first semi-postal stamps in continental Europe were a 1906 Netherlands series supporting tuberculosis control, and Suriname issued the first semi-postal stamps in South America in 1927, supporting the Green Cross, a community health care organization. In 1928, the Suriname postal service issued a series of 4 semi-postal stamps (Scott #B4-B7) bearing an art deco-style image of the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan. Initially he was pro-German and proJapanese, but his political stance gradually evolved, and in 1938, he called for formation of a European bloc to counter the growing influence of Japan in the Pacific region, which threatened the Dutch East Indies. Because he refused to collaborate with German invaders in 1942, van Heemstra was forced from his residence outside Arnhem and most of his property was confiscated; his son-in-law Otto was executed in retaliation for a sabotage attack by the Dutch Resistance.