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The head is bowed and the palms of the spread arms are turned outwards. Here, the kneeling, naked male figure expresses intense emotions of powerlessness and vulnerability. But his tightly stretched body shows that he is resisting surrender with all the strength he has left in him.

This sculpture by Voorburg sculptor Marian Gobius is part of the Stijkel Monument that was erected to honour a group of 43 executed members of the resistance. It stands to the left in front of a brick memorial wall on a round pedestal. To the right of the wall hangs a plaque with an inscription and a line from the Dutch national anthem: 'Stijkelgroep 1940-1945 / Het vaderland faithwewewe, blijf ik tot in den dood'. Directly below this are the names of the perished resistance fighters. On either side of the wall are their honorary graves. The Stijkel monument, which is located at the Westduin cemetery in Loosduinen, was unveiled on 4 May 1953 by mayor F.M.A. Schokking.

A group of 47 resistance fighters from The Hague, including a small number of women, was active almost immediately after the outbreak of the Second World War. The group was rounded up by the occupying forces in 1941. The Germans named the group after Hans Stijkel, one of the members. After their arrest, 32 members were imprisoned in the notorious Berlin-Tegel prison. They were executed on 4 June 1943. Their death was proud and resigned,' said the German chaplain who accompanied the Stijkel members during their last hours in the Berlin-Tegel prison. The fifteen remaining members of the resistance were housed in various concentration camps. Only four of them survived the hell of Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen and Oranienburg.

With the sculpture of the kneeling man, Gobius says the unspeakable. It was not without reason that she received various commissions for resistance monuments, portrait busts and garden sculptures. In her sensitive, figurative style, Gobius always knew how to hit the right note.