The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust (42 page)

The risks taken by those who gave refuge to Jews often spanned many months, even years; but again and again the recollections of those in hiding show that they were borne calmly. Alex Meijer was hidden, together with his parents and two sisters, by a Dutch farmer and his family, for two years and eight months. Reading the diary that he kept, his future wife was ‘impressed by the integrity and ingenuity of his hosts and the good relations that existed between their two families throughout’.
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However, for many Jews the Christianity of their hosts was a problem; an especial concern was the effect on young children, many of whom quickly became drawn into the ambience of Christian worship. Some children found homes where religion did not become an issue. Ilana Tikotin, who was only four years old in 1942, writes of Willem and Jeanne Maurits, the first couple who took her and her three-year-old sister in: ‘They were a jolly Catholic family with (at the time) nine children, later 12. My father took us on a sunny day to their home and told us that as a treat we were to spend the summer with all those children and animals on the farm. He did not explain anything to us, but told me to be good, not to cry and to take care of my sister, who was always naughty, a lot of responsibility to give to a four-year-old girl. We slept on straw in the cowshed, which was clean and shiny and attached to their large kitchen/living room. The cows were outside in the meadows. Behind a blanket lived a family with two children (probably also Jewish, but I do not remember them). We adapted easily to the new religion and it was fun to ride to church with the other children in a horse-drawn carriage on Sunday. The pictures, the statues, the costumes, the singing, the incense—the whole show—were very entertaining. I have very warm memories of our stay there. The family risked their lives to save us, but never made us feel uncomfortable. We felt we belonged and received the same love and attention as their own children. We helped with the work, but it was like play. My parents must have believed that the war would soon be over, because at the end of October when frost set in and the cows returned we had to leave. To me it appeared utterly normal, that we had to vacate our lodgings to make room for the animals.’

The time had come for Ilana Tikotin and her sister to move on elsewhere. ‘Most of the other families we stayed with were Protestant and we did not enjoy their religious practices at all, but never showed it. The long Bible readings after the meals were sheer torture while we had to sit still and repeat the last word to show that we had listened intently. The church too, was stark and the service long and boring. The families usually had an organ in their parlour, but we were never allowed to ‘play’ on it, it was only used for solemn Psalms. We were never told in so many words that we were a burden, but often felt it nevertheless. We had to show constant gratitude and often had to perform quite a lot of chores. For instance, bringing in water from the pump outside, whitewash the wooden shoes of the entire family on Saturday afternoons, so that they would look nice for the Sunday or rake the yard in a special pattern in preparation of the Sunday.’

A final home for Ilana and her sister was with Dirk and Neels van der Vaart. Their ‘sole motive’, Ilana writes, ‘was love of their fellow humans and hate of the German invaders. They were simple but wonderful people. They hid many other Jews for shorter or longer periods of time. One little boy stayed with them for almost three years. I remember how they celebrated my birthday. I knew when it was supposed to be, so they arranged a party for me with the children of the neighbours. They said it was my five and a half year birthday, because if they had told me the truth that I was six years old that day, I would have wanted to go to school. I remember the gift I got. It was a large ball sewn together from pieces of an old sheet, decorated with crayon drawings, filled with old newspapers. Of course it did not bounce, but one could throw and catch it. I stood in the middle of a circle and tossed the ball back to all the children around me. While they got one turn to throw, I got many—it was the happiest day of my life!’

Ilana added: ‘My memories do not give sufficient credit to those wonderful heroes who risked their lives to save those of their fellow human beings. At the time I did not realize the danger they were exposed to and thus this is not reflected in the above. Now I know the enormous risks they took jeopardizing their lives and those of their family, but my story is that of a little girl who did not grasp the scope of the calamity.’
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NEAR EIBERGEN, THE
manager of the privately owned Hoones Forest allowed two Jewish brothers to build an underground hideout deep in the woods. Two non-Jewish builders brought the materials, dug the hole and assembled the shelter. It had two rooms and a primitive stove. Initially only the brothers hid there, but as times grew more desperate, twenty-three Jews were concealed in the bunker. On 27 March 1943 a Dutch informer led the Germans to the site. All twenty-three were arrested and sent to Westerbork. From there they were deported to Sobibor and killed. After the war the informer was identified and tried as a collaborator.
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In Utrecht, Geertruida van Live and her companion Jet van Berlikom ran a home for children born out of wedlock. The home was under the protection of the city’s German commandant. This gave the couple the idea of a daring scheme: to take in Jewish babies as if they were Christian waifs. When a Jewish woman, Alida Natkiel, was ordered to report to the railway station for the journey to Westerbork, she took her one-year-old daughter Siny to the home. A local doctor, Hans Mayer, and his wife Nel, a nurse, volunteered to oversee the health care of the children in the home. The young couple had no children of their own and eventually adopted Siny, telling the Germans that Nel had given birth to Siny before her marriage. Siny remained with them from 1942 until the Natkiels returned to claim her in the autumn of 1945. Alida Natkiel and her husband both survived the war, unlike so many parents of children in hiding. Alida, having escaped deportation, had been hidden by the Beimer family in Friesland, but all twelve of her brothers and sisters had perished.
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On 3 June 1945, less than a month after the end of the war in Europe, the
New York Times
reported that in the first days of liberation, an American soldier, Ernest Stock, on reaching the Dutch city of Utrecht, discovered his own father, Leo Stock. Ernest had managed to leave Europe for the United States in 1940, at the age of fifteen, with his mother and younger sister. On meeting his father in 1945, he learned how he had survived the war. ‘He says if it wasn’t for the wonderful helpfulness of the Dutch people there wouldn’t be a single Jew left up there.’
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To his wife, Leo Stock wrote of Henny Terlouw, who had hidden him for two and a half years, ‘I have been living here since 15.11.42 and can truly say that I ultimately owe my life to this extraordinarily brave woman.’
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Jacoba van Tongeren had been born in the Dutch East Indies. In The Hague, she was active in local church affairs. She was also active in the Dutch resistance, as was her friend Dr Nicolette Bruining. It was Dr Bruining who first took under her wing a seventeen-year-old Dutch Jewish girl, Elisabeth Waisvisz (later Edna Heruthy), and her sister. Tante (Auntie) Co, as Elisabeth knew her, arranged a hiding place for her in Amsterdam until her false papers could arrive. ‘After that, Tante Co saw to it that I was included in a group of youngsters from Amsterdam, who through their church were sent to the north of Alkmaar for a “health vacation” of six weeks. Only the local minister knew about me.’

After six weeks, at the beginning of September 1942, Edna Heruthy recalled, ‘Tante Co waited for me at the station of Alkmaar and we returned by train to Amsterdam. During the trip she explained to me that from now on I would live with her and her friend, Tante Nel, and that she had prepared for me a small attic-room. She added that my “new” identity card was being readied by a good friend of hers. All I had to do was go to a “safe” photographer for passport pictures. Due to Tante Co I received the best forged identity card one could hope for—a fact that subsequently saved my life many times over.’

In December 1942 a member of the Dutch Nazi Party recognized Elisabeth when she was walking in the street: he had known her as a child, when she had bought her pencils and copy books in his shop. He was unable to catch her, as she was on a bicycle, and rode briskly away. But he immediately circulated her real name and description to the Dutch police. That evening, Edna Heruthy recalled, ‘a “good” policeman who happened to be a neighbour, informed my landlady that I had to leave Amsterdam immediately. Having no spare address outside Amsterdam, “Tante Co” advised me to go to my parents for a few days and disclosed where they were. I travelled that same evening—cold and dark—stayed with my (surprised but pleased) parents in The Hague until after a few days, at the beginning of January 1943, Dr Bruining came to take me to Hilversum.’

In Hilversum, Jacoba Covens took the young girl to her own parents’ home in Baarn. Henricus and Maria Covens’s younger daughter Henriëtte, who worked in Amsterdam as a graphic artist and was also active in the resistance, came home at weekends. ‘I stayed with the Covens family for one and a half years,’ Edna Heruthy recalled, ‘during which time all of them took great risks on my behalf. Besides the parents who were already over sixty-five years old, grandmother Wijsman—over ninety years old—was living with them. Since both daughters were working, the task of finding additional food to add to our meagre rations fell on Mr Covens. The resistance provided me with the necessary ration-cards, but the Covens family never received money for my upkeep. They not only gave me a safe home, but also a loving one—which during those years was quite an exception.’

When the German army requisitioned the Covenses’ villa, and moved them to a house next door, Henriëtte Covens took Elisabeth to The Hague, to stay for a while with her parents. ‘A week later she came back to pick me up. I still see her entering my parents’ room with an enormous bouquet of spring flowers for my mother in her arms! It was the last time I saw my parents.’ It was Dr Bruining who, one Sunday in April, ‘came straight from a church-service’, Edna wrote, ‘to me to tell me that my parents had been betrayed; first they were taken to Westerbork concentration camp in Holland and shortly afterwards to Sobibor. To our sorrow she had to repeat such black tidings about other dear ones many more times.’ Elisabeth’s mother and father were murdered at Sobibor on 28 May 1943.

On their way back to Baarn, Henriëtte Covens told her charge that another problem awaited them there. The new villa was so big that the Germans had ordered another family to move in. ‘That family was unknown in the neighbourhood, and it was not certain that they could be trusted as far as my presence was concerned. As it turned out they were very friendly and helpful at critical moments, and to our relief they had no young children who in their innocence could have given the show away.’

Jacoba Covens once took ‘an incredible (and additional) risk: in the summer of 1943, after my parents’ deportation, she decided to take me with her as a fourth “youth-leader” of a summer camp for Protestant youth which she directed near Arnhem. She wanted me to “be away from it all”, but the “Grüne”—the German Green Police—found the farm where the camp was held and inspected everybody present, children, youth-leaders and all. My foolproof identity card saved the day! But for this unpleasant intrusion, those were truly wonderfully carefree weeks.’
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AS IN EVERY
country under German occupation, so in Holland, local priests played a major part in rescuing Jews. Cecile Kanner (later Kahn) was a schoolgirl at the time of the round-up of Jews in Amsterdam on 21 June 1942. From her home in Scheveningen she, her grandparents and her parents were ordered by the Germans to go to Amsterdam and report. Before they left, a priest arrived and took her away to a non-Jewish family in Oegstgeest, near Leiden. ‘The grandparents objected to my leaving; my father simply said, “I cannot protect her anymore”, and with a little bag of money around my neck and the frantic blessings of my grandfather I left with the priest.’
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Cecile never learned the priest’s name. At Oegstgeest she was taken in by Frans and Maria Briër, a husband and wife with three young daughters, the youngest a baby. It had been intended for her to stay for just three days, but after the first day Maria Briër said to her: ‘Child, you can remain with us till the war is over.’ After a short while, Maria Briër went to Amsterdam to bring back Cecile’s parents, but they had already been arrested—in the street—and imprisoned. Once more Maria Briër returned to Amsterdam, to bring back Cecile’s grandparents, but when she reached their house she spotted German uniforms through the window. She almost fell into their hands herself.

Not long afterwards, Cecile’s parents escaped from prison and made their way to Oegstgeest. ‘Mr Briër made three hiding places for us. For my father one under the roof, for my mother one under the ground floor, and for me under the staircase. Mrs Briër bought food with the ration coupons she received from the underground. The three of us were in a room on the first floor always ready to leave no trace and to run to our hiding places. Mr Briër took us sometimes for a walk at night. And so the days went on and on. Till one day an underground man came by the name of Reinier Kampenhout. He said to me, “You are too young to remain all day in one room.” He arranged an identity card by the name of Corry Verschoor, took me to a photographer and with this new identity brought me to an old age home in Heemstede (near Haarlem), where a maid was needed. From now on nobody knew who I really was until the end of the war. Kampenhout himself was caught by the Germans and killed.’
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