Gerard Helders

Gerardus Philippus "Gerard" Helders (17 May 1910 – 31 May 2017) was a Dutch politician and centenarian who was the oldest known living man in the Netherlands at the time of his death.

Biography
Helders was born in Rotterdam in 1903. He studied civil law at Leiden University from 1925 to 1929. Helders became part of the city council in Bandung and Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Helders was a prisoner of war from 1942 to 1945, as the colony was under Japanese control at the time. Helders returned to the Netherlands, and became the Minister of Colonial Affairs in 1957. From 1959 to 1975, he was a member of the Council of State.

Helders married Pieternella Meijir in 1930. They had five children. Pieternella died in 1982. Helders turned 100 in 2005, and succeeded 110-year old Cornelis Geurtz as the oldest living Dutchman on 21 August 2012. Helders died on 6 January 2013, aged 107. Arie Vermeulen then became the oldest living man in the Netherlands.