Josua Wilts had a drinking problem and a secret he was willing to trade. In 1730, the sexton of the Dom Tower testified in court that he had witnessed two men together in the Michaelskapel, the small chapel tucked inside this tower. To keep himself out of a correctional house, he gave up names. One of those names was Gilles van Baaden.
On 31 March 1730, Gilles was strangled in the basement of Hasenberg, a house attached to the old town hall. His execution was not an isolated incident. It triggered one of the most brutal waves of persecution in Dutch history. Arrests spread from Utrecht across the entire country, pulling apart a network of men who had quietly found each other in the Michaelskapel, at Janskerkhof, along the city ramparts, and at Vredenburg. Nearly 80 men were ultimately sentenced to death. Around 300 were prosecuted in total.
What makes this place feel different today is the memorial stone on Domplein, placed in 1999 on the ruins of the Dom Church's nave. It sits there quietly, at your feet, marking everything that happened here and insisting it should never happen again. Considering how loudly Utrecht celebrates Pride these days, that stone has clearly done some convincing.
Sources. Story: utrechtaltijd.nl Photos: Het Utrechts Archief
