MEMORIES

ECHOES OF THE PAST

A DUTCH FAMILY OF EIGHT AND FOUR JEWS HIDING TOGETHER WORLD WAR II 1940-1945

BY HESTER GRINBERG-BOISSEVAIN

never, ever tell a secret or a story to anyone. Even one story to one person can be fatal for all.
Robert Lucas Boissevain 1895-1945

Foreword
To the readers of this article I will explain in some words what the reason was for me writing it. ATZUMs Righteous Among the Nations Project pays attention in all kind of ways to rescuers who have lived in Europe during World War ll and are now living in Israel. During meetings they hear about their stories of those years. The Education Department in Yad VaShem also receives international groups and organizes telling them those stories. In this way they promote new spirits, passing them on to the next generations. This last autumn I got letters from around the globe most probably as a result of this. Many many thanks to Yael Rosen of ATZUM who asked me to write the following story of my family in Holland.

Hester Grinberg-Boissevain Autumn 2008; Israel

My grandmother was a widow and lived alone in a house in Amsterdam. Sometimes a nephew came to visit her and once he brought her a lottery ticket from the State-Lottery, which took place once a year. After some time he came again and asked her what did you do with the lottery ticket I bought you? She told him that she couldnt remember. She put it away in some drawer, not being interested in money. They found the piece of paper and she was the winner of a very big prize. Her uncle was a famous architect in Holland and he built her a little summerhouse opposite the sea at the coast in Zandvoort, where she could enjoy the vacations with her children and grandchildren. Those days were around the year of 1929, when the big financial crisis started; bad times with many to come. My family, as well as other Dutch people, recovered themselves slowly during the years after. But then, in a miraculous way, in the year of 1936 the German-Nazis took hold of my parents money, through creeping involvements. Somehow my father had business relations with Germany, until he discovered the real Hitler Regime with all their fateful intrigues, entering Europe step-by-step. We lived in Amsterdam, and because of our new financial situation, we had to leave our house there, to a more modest way of life. Without any other choice we moved to the summerhouse of my grandmother, where we spent the happiest years of our lives. A lot of sun, fun, family and friends.

As the years grew on, so did the hatred my father felt for the Nazis. He became involved in great illegal underground activities, which became his world. He often came home late and put on Radio Oranje from London looking tired grave and troubled. For us we were never able to trace the secrets in which he was involved. He was silent as the grave. He taught us: 'never, ever tell a secret or a story to anyone, even one story to one person can be fatal for all'. He foresaw the dangerous future lines lying ahead of us and the whole world. From the first day of the war he was busy with lifesaving and courageous deeds, also helping people cross the border, as well as British & American captured pilots. Approaching May 10th 1940, we had to sleep every night with a little bag next to our bed with some belongings, for my parents thought to flee the country if times would become unbearable. But it was too late. The war broke out on the 10th of May. The courageous Dutch Army fought hard to resist against the Germans, but only for some days. Holland as a small country capitulated. The Royal Air Force became part of our daily lives. We saw cruel fighting in the air against the Germans, burning planes falling down in the sea. Huge sea mines with heavy loaded explosives, either floating around in the blue waters of the North-sea or being washed upon the beach, an incredible danger for people living near. One day the SS circled around our house and threw us all out forever. In a short time we had to evacuate to another empty place very close to there. Behind the barbed wire we saw how
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they broke our house to pieces, our beloved home from the lottery belonged to the past. The coming months became for us one big evacuation after another. All the houses on the coast slowly disappeared. After four times of living here and there, we all as a family of eight father, mother and their six children moved finally to a house in the town called Haarlem ca. 10 miles away. It was an empty house of an aunt & uncle of my mother, who left Holland before the war. Their son was living in America, we never met him. The house, as well as all of the cupboards, were full of family belongings. Many books, toys and clothes, which kept us busy during all those years to come. In the dark days of World War II, until the end, the 5th of May 1945. In this house in Haarlem, we settled down. There was a garden; I even kept some rabbits, not for too long. A big white rabbit with grey ears and a soft hairy coat, a mother of so many little ones for me a lovely memory. My mother started a "vegetable garden" in the backyard there, also not for very long. In that house was one big living room, all very well kept, glassy shiny cupboards with beautiful porcelain, heavy furniture and chairs afraid to sit on, it all looked unnatural to us. The housekeeper, another uncle of my mother, came often to inspect the house, we werent even allowed to enter this PRONK (Dutch word for flaunt) ROOM as we called it. The days changed rapidly, the war went on, and one day this uncle decided to open that room for some of his family members, who also had to evacuate or change houses, and the so called PRONK-ROOM became a PACKHOUSE, boxes, cases, furniture. All the beauty
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disappeared, where to, we never knew. From bottom to the ceiling, things were piled up. For us, a living fact in such an unreal time. At that time life was still bearable in some way, but not for long. School somehow continued, not much more than to the end of 1943. My older sisters school was some three miles away. One day coming back home German soldiers stopped her on the way. She wanted to escape quickly, but they put their guns towards her head and took away her bicycle. She walked home. My twin brother and I also had to walk far to reach a kind of school, having to pass a park with high trees. My mother always accompanied us and one day German soldiers came shouting, as they always did, towards us. Stop! (Halt!) Immediately. Frightened, we hid behind a bush, they were killing people, executing men innocent people. My mother told us they are killing dogs. For the Jews life became more and more difficult. I remember that a very good friend of my eldest brother, Dick Polak, all of a sudden had to wear the yellow star on his coat. He survived the war. In Amsterdam, when visiting there, I saw also other people in the blue-tram many of them wearing the yellow star. I remember a feeling of WHY? There were so many WHYs in those years. My eldest brother had to go in hiding so as not to be taken to the labor camps, for he passed his 18th birthday, as one example. For this reason he was never able to leave the house. One afternoon in March 1943 you could feel the spring coming. Very quiet sunny weather. My father, who had his
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office in Amsterdam, phoned my mother please arrange a kind of dinner for I will bring some friends in the evening to eat with us. My father did not want us my twin brother and I, being the youngest ones in the family, to meet them and send us up-stairs in a room. These were a few days of mystery until we finally were acquainted with the Goldberg family: a mother, a father and their daughter, Anja, 29 years old. They originated in Russia and came to Holland through Finland and Germany, thinking of Holland as a safe place. They got in contact with my father somehow who was at those times busy saving people from dangerous conditions. That famous dinner party for one evening became a long tale in our family history. They stayed with us for two more years and two months, until the end of the war, 5th of May, 1945. It changed our lives completely, we were told never, ever speak about the Goldberg family. For this reason we were also not allowed to play with other children or bring them home. Even when my mother's sister who lived in Amsterdam visited us for some days, the secret stayed a secret, she never knew about the family sharing a room together just a floor above. Anja Goldberg was a very talented young woman who liked to write stories and played the piano very well. My mother thought about a pianola (self playing), a music roll you could put in the piano, playing classical music. It sounded very real, so that when Anja was playing the piano herself it should not be suspicious for our neighbors on one side who were collaborating with the Germans. They thought her playing was the pianola. We, as young people of course were surely not able to play the piano like that.
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Through the walls it was possible to hear the music and that could be a dangerous situation. Also too many voices, loud speaking or flushing the toilet too often, was for the same reason forbidden. Then came the day, in the summer of 1943, when we had to say good-bye to my father. It was a farewell forever. I remember this moment so very well. His life was in danger because lifesaving was a dangerous business. Not to bring us in an unsafe position, he left us and went into hiding for unknown time in the South of Holland. From there he continued all his illegal activities. One day he was caught and betrayed, as one of the most wanted persons the Germans could get hold of. He was send to one of the most terrible prisons of all called Scheveningen. They tortured him very much, was kept all alone in a cell for 9 months. From there, more dead than alive, he was brought to the prison Vught in Branbant. They put him directly in the hospital where he met our beloved aunt, Mies Boissevain v Lennep, working there and called mammie by her comrades, all prisoners as well. She had to look after him. This was a very big coincidence, for they were both very much involved in illegal work before they were caught, not knowing from each other what the other did. All resistance groups were separately organized. It was from there that we heard from him after so many months. We never knew what really happened. He wrote some letters, but even so, after some kind of recovery he was sent on to other concentration camps. The last one, called Buchenwald, in Germany, known as being one of the most cruel and inhuman prisons, torturing people, first letting them work with heavy stones, cutting, digging for making tunnels all above human capabilities. After that all contact with him was lost. People who were with him
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until the last day told us after the war that he was always strong and optimistic, he gave courage to the men around him, until the day the Americans came to liberate the camp his wedding day - the 12th of April 1945, he said to his fellow prisoners: Come let us go and meet them at the entrance on his way there he collapsed and never reached the fence.

Robert Lucas Boissevain 1943

The Germans never broke his spirit, whenever tortured, he kept his secrets all for himself, never betrayed anyone. My mother was left alone with all of us, food became very rare, there were food-cards distributed for the seven of us, not for ten or eleven as we really were. The eleventh person in the family was a dentist of Jewish-Dutch origin who joined us too. We never knew how, but heard long after the war (in Israel) that my brothers teacher asked my mother to hide him in her house during the war.

Those cards for the seven allowed us to get some watery soup that we could fetch at the tram station which was organized by community kitchen, far away from real nutrition standards. My mother needed another five food cards so she went secretly to the Red-Cross organization to get some falsified papers from the manager she knew personally. Not to be suspicious to come again to the same place she had to go to another kitchen. These organizations stopped working at the end of 1943. My mother had to look after a hungry family of eleven all by herself. In addition, the gas distribution finished, the use of electricity was only allowed for a short time in the evening, overusing this power was dangerous for all of us. No electricity outside, people had to cover their windows with black sheets and not a trace of light should be seen. Winter came, no gas, no electricity, and no heating, very little food. It was depressing. The only thing we could do was go to bed lying under a pile of blankets, to wake up the next morning with no more hope than the day before. As mentioned before, we were living in the town of Haarlem, not far from that part of Holland were farmers grew tulip bulbs, after the war known as the so called tulip fields to look at with all their beautiful colors, miles long, very attractive for tourists to see. My mother heard about the possibility of eating them and got to know an address where she could buy them. The fear of being left without hardly anything to eat was great. The thought of getting a wooden cart with only two wooden wheels became so important to her that she succeeded to find one, and decided to go on with this idea,

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fetching the bulbs. My brother, 13 years old, very small and thin, was the only one she could think of going there. He left the house early in the morning with a very long road to go, but wonderful as you could say came home safely with no less than 400 kg. of tulip bulbs, all loaded on that wooden cart. While pushing it forward, afraid of losing his balance quite a few times - a very difficult task all alone - but nevertheless managed not to capsize, the whole heavy lot never fell down. He walked for 12 miles in one day. I can imagine the rattling noisy sound of the wooden wheels all the way long accompanying him. We gave 100 kg to our good neighbors, older people who could not get out. Anyhow, it kept us alive for 7 months until the end of the war. That was our luck. The days went on, less and less to eat. Many people living in the town went out to the farmers around to buy some food, which they had. My mother as well, on her bicycle, went roaming from one place to another, hoping to get something. Often farmers turned their backs on her and sent her away. Then, one day, she took some undergarments from the cupboard filled with clothes of her aunt, no longer alive the big pink corsets with iron threads and thought to sell them to the farmers wives with their big round waists. She was lucky and her idea succeeded, selling them in exchange of some food. On her way back she had to pass the entrance of the town with a huge bridge. The watchman let her pass. After the bridge there stood SS policeman in ambush and stopped my mother. They never allowed people entering the town with food: LET THEM STARVE!

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She kept a bag with 30 eggs she bought and when she arrived at the unexpected check-point, she put the bag, as if it was empty on the finger of one hand and waved it joyfully on and off in front of the SS police and so passed the check point without being discovered. She also kept things in holes under the floor and the eggs she put in jars of porcelain that she found in that old fashioned house, as a reserve for many more days to come. She filled the jars with a special fluid. One day she wanted to take some eggs for a meal but they were all rotten. It was a terrible smell. Apart from of all this she traveled once a week to the countryside in the North where one was still able to find some food - on her bicycle for 60 km. to small places - and 60 km. back, all on one day!! I even remember, taking me sometimes with her on the back of the bicycle to visit a family who served us some food. We had to be home before closing hours which was always uncertain if we could reach home in time when the sunset was already coming down on us. These trips were not enough; the situation became even worse with a hopeless feeling. She decided to set out for the East of the country. All on her bicycle! She traveled for days it was January 1945 cold, snow and ice prevented her to continue the roads easily. If she was lucky, farmers let her sleep in the cowsheds. The tires of her bicycle broke down and she traveled the rest of the long journey on iron wheels. When she finally got home warn-out after 10 days, she had very little food for us. It was very disappointing, she got hardly anything,

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it must have been a rabbit if I remember well cooked at least a hundred times. In those days, eleven people, all of us living together at least most of the day in a small room with a chimney and a big stove, not in use, for there was no coal anymore. My brothers then made a tiny little stove 20/15 cm. from an iron pipe and put this inside the big stove with a connection to the chimney. It was just big enough to prepare some tea or soup and a quick feeling of heat. To light the fire in this little stove we had to get some wood. My brothers decided to cut a tree in front of the house, and not to be noticed it had to be done in the pitch dark just before closing hours, people were not be allowed being outside. They succeeded, the tree fell down and exactly then neighbors came running out taking away the small branches. We got the big trunk and my brothers cut it into small pieces of 2 inches. To burn in this little stove. Future without future there were often tense moments between all of us. Everyone lived with their own feeling of fear and uncertainty. As an example the house had to be cleaned or tidied up in some way and once, when my mother asked Anja to clean the carpet, she answered angrily "why me, why not you or she?" Who was she? The only one who could cope in those difficult situations was my mother. Lowske - Mr. Goldberg - admired her so much, he called her often "Eisenhower. You are the Eisenhower in the family. What would we have done without you". This family, the Goldberg family, was Russian speaking between themselves. The sound of their talking always
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seemed as if they were angry. My elder sister, once, liked to tell a little story and she told the Goldberg family "Now you must hear this story, it is so interesting". For them it sounded as a general speaking in the German Army. They were so offended, hardly spoke to anybody and stayed in bed most of the time for three days. As for those days, the last years of the war, there were also good things to tell: my eldest brother learned Russian from Mr. Lowske Goldberg and he himself taught him English, both being intelligent people and eager to learn. They also spoke about the political situations after listening to Radio Oranje from London. They built up a special relationship between them. Mr. Goldberg was an optimistic warm person. Mrs. Goldberg was quite another person if not laying in bed for hours during the day, she sat with us and was always speaking about food. All the good and tasty things she used to prepare, even from the time they lived in Russia or Finland. Her Dutch language was mixed up with Russian Yiddish German: "And when we in Finland weren it was so 'lekker'" and then at last, always her last sentence was: "Ein bischen soire rum (cream) dabei. Oi-joi-joi, so lekker" Waving her hand along her face. In her mind she was surely longing for this kind of food, a very common known behavior, obvious for very hungry people. She taught me, little Russian songs we sang very softly.
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Anja, as I can remember, sat many hours of the day "writing" stories. I very often wondered about whatbut also that we still dont know until today and in what language Russian? The Dutch dentist, who shared his life with us, also had very little contact with them. He was very much alone. Sometimes on a sunny day, he asked my sister or me to sit a little in the warming sun with him, shining into the room behind a window low, not to be seen by opposite neighbors, patting me on my hair. Surely, he was missing his own two daughters, who were sent to Auschwitz. One day, the uncle of my mother came unexpectedly and knocked hard on the front door. He came to inspect the house, as if he was the housekeeper himself, of course he knew nothing about who was hiding with us. "never, ever tell a secret or a story to anyone. Even one story to one person can be fatal for all". A knock on the door was always very frightening. My mother was not at home and my brother, only 13 years old, went with him through the house. Before my brother opened the front door, everybody had to run away and hide. The housekeeper, this uncle, knocked on every door in the whole house of every room. Only one door was open, and all of sudden he saw the dentist sitting in my sister's room, and asked angrily "who is that person?" My brother answered immediately: "Oh, he is a school teacher to help my sister with her lessons, and now enjoys himself sitting a little in the sun". More tragic events were lying ahead of us. My two brothers, the eldest and the youngest one, got very ill, high fever with a terrible throat infection. It looked serious.

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My mother decided to ask the family doctor, Dr. Roorda, to come and see them. The moment he entered the room, he immediately said: "Oh, here is a case of Diphtheria", according to the special sweet smell hanging around, obvious to this disease. Very-very luckily, he had an anti diphtheria serum. As I already slept in the same room (I was then 10 years old) I continued to stay with them and looked after them. They slowly recovered. I never became infected. Dr. Roorda gave my mother a white doctor's coat to hang near the front door. For any strange person coming at the door, it frightened them and they never came back. What really made my mother very very much afraid was the possibility that one or more of our people in hiding would become ill or die from this disease or in general and than where to bury them. This could have been the end for all of us. It took some weeks, but happily again we all survived. The main issue we learned from the beginning of the war was built-up in our minds: Never trust anybody as my father taught us. There was a day my mother got a very hopeless feeling, Christmas 1944 was approaching and she wanted to get something special for this day. She decided to leave the house early in the morning, six o'clock. My eldest brother was hiding with us as well, as I already told before, for he passed his eighteenth birthday and should have been taken to the labor camps. He helped my mother putting her bicycle outside, an ugly minded Nazi officer stood behind a tree who caught him immediately; he had to stand at the end of the street for hours long, in a row with other men who were caught as well. Standing
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there he thought about the copies he typed out from the news he heard from Radio Oranje sent from London. He kept these copies in his pocket on the back side of his trousers. It was printed on very thin paper and we as children had to distribute them to some neighbors anxious to get the news. For us a risk as well. In front of all those men being kept standing there, German soldiers were watching them all the time and did not allow them to move even one finger. But nevertheless, not being sure how to get rid of those papers without being noticed, he managed to throw them out of his pocket behind a little wall. Later on my sister came along with her bicycle and left the bicycle there. My brother took it and escaped. During the escape, unfortunately, he entered a dead end road. The Germans took him again and brought him to prison, heavily beaten. With this feeling of hopelessness my mother decided again to ask the help of this special doctor Roorda. She trusted him. He managed to give papers to let him free but the Nazis did not accept them and my mother was sent back. Some days later Dr. Roorda came again with falsified papers despite the danger for him. It was written that my brother was suffering from a very serious tuberculosis infection. My mother changed her appearance altogether not to be recognized, having been there only some days before and tried to see and tell him in some seconds only a row of numbers and dates, according to the falsified papers. Later on he was examined and had to answer all the questions, which he did correctly. He was freed.

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At this occasion my mother saw a pile of rubber bicycle bands. She took one away and put it under her skirt (!) and came home For the Christmas table we had to rub sugar beets we got as a kind of food, to rub it to pulp, and eat it as little meat balls. It was a terrible taste; they were put away for the so called Christmas dinner together with some tulip bulbs. Christmas came and it was one o'clock in the afternoon. We all sat in the big kitchen around the table and all of a sudden saw German soldiers jumping over the fence outside. Again the fear of being discovered, my mother with her "Eisenhower" talent went to them and asked them so-called quietly what they were doing in our garden? In the meantime, during a very little bit of time, our people in hiding ran up the stairs to their hiding place underneath the roof of tiles. We, as children, had all a task of wiping away all traces of a family of eleven eating, drinking only a minute before sitting around a big table; too many plates, glasses, beds and so on, had to be moved away. Many times in the months before, my mother arranged unexpected alarms for all of us, so if something r e a l l y would happen, we should not panic. I had the task, together with my twin brother, to sit quietly and play a domino game. We were 10 years old then. Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg about 70 years old, their daughter, the dentist and my eldest brother as the last, had to run up the stairs, climb up the ladder for this reason arranged, they all had of course to disappear the ladder as well.

Thanks to all the training it passed very quickly, all in two minutes. All the five were hidden.
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The Germans entered from the garden, through open doors and windows and sent us standing outside on the street with hands above our heads. After some time we were allowed to put them down. They left the house and started the search at the beginning of the street looking for a wanted person. Other families had to go out as well, except the family next door, collaborating with the Germans "NSBR"-s, as they were called by the Dutch people. Soldiers entered every house, we saw them slowly nearing us and after some hours (!) waiting, 2-3 soldiers finally went inside our house with us looking at them. Sometime after that, we heard shooting!!! They, the Nazis, apparently thought that the man who they were looking for was hiding in what we called the Pronk room" as I already wrote before, but changed into the "Pack room" a room filled with boxes and furniture two years before from the bottom to the ceiling. Then, again after sometime, they came running out and shouted loudly in their Nazi way: "VIER ODER FUNF" - In English it meant four or five.

We were in great shock and thought they found our people hiding!!! Again, with her 'Eisenhower talent', my mother walked up to them, calmly, and asked the commander: "What do you mean by four or five?" They told her:" In this big house filled with things and furniture we need some four or five more soldiers to help with the search". It already became dark, we never saw how many entered and how many came out. At seven o'clock in the evening,

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after 6 hours freezing in the cold, we were allowed to go back in the house, also freezing cold. My mother was suspicious and afraid that they hid one or two soldiers somewhere, so they could finally discover our s e c r e t. She went upstairs singing aloud a children's song: "SIT WHERE YOU SIT AND DO NOT MOVE AROUND" Only the next morning, when my mother was sure the place was safe in daylight our people in hiding all came down after 19 hours having been there, surely very disturbed!!! What must have been their thoughts? Think of it! Laying there for so long, very cold, and being so afraid without knowing what would happen. But still, for all of us, we were AGAIN kept alive. We were told the man they were looking for escaped. After this Christmas incident the worst had still to come. We entered the months of HUNGER WINTER. Life in the big cities was dead. No heating, no food, people became ill and exhausted. We heard it, we saw it, and it was obvious. Many, many died it was so depressing. To add a few words what happened in Holland the last year of the war, in general: In September 1944 the Allied Army (American-Canadian and English soldiers) invaded the coast of Normandy in France the well known D day invasion many soldiers lost their lives. After heavy fighting they entered Belgium, from there to Holland and again after a big battle around the towns Arnhem and Nijmegen they liberated the
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Southern part of Holland. The Germans blew up the big bridges on the three big rivers, the Northern part of Holland stayed occupied. There were no more connections. The h u n g e r w in t e r started and lasted until the end of the war. We, as well as other people, just sat, nothing more, all day thinking, waiting for months: Should this go on forever, for how long, when will the end, will we all be kept alive, how will be the end? How will it be for all of us? My eldest brother sometimes listening to Radio Oranje, sent from London only to get more depressed, hearing the news. Finally the day of Liberation came 5th May 1945. "WE ARE LIBERATED WE ARE LIBERATED A BIG CRY FOR ALL" Still not safe to go outside, as the German soldiers shot at everyone going out too early, people who were told not to leave the house and left, recklessly, were shot and killed. We were freed by American and Canadian soldiers. Tanks rolling into the streets, people full of joy, crying, jumped up at the tanks, embracing these soldiers. They dropped down, spoke with the people, and entered the houses we all felt the joy being with them. I can remember sitting on the lap of a Canadian soldier, feeling warm and exited someone taking care at long last.

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The Swedish Red Cross Organization saved our lives in the end. They threw packages with food from the air, provided us with bread, which we had not eaten for years. Everyone got a loaf of bread for one week, and could do with it as they liked. Just like monkeys sitting in a cage with a piece of bread to eat, either finishing it in one day, or dividing it over the whole week. It was like the most delicious cake ever eaten. The Goldberg family left, returned to their home in Amsterdam. Even years later, when my mother sometimes visited them, she by chance met another son and daughter of theirs. Their fear of being discovered was still so strong. The Goldbergs never spoke about them. We felt it as a great surprise after having lived together for so long. Anja, immediately after the war, ran away with a Canadian soldier as so many did in those days. As a young woman she passed very difficult years, living all of sudden with a whole strange family, not knowing what really was going on around her, closed up in a house in a country where a terrible war was going on. We never heard from her again. The dentist- Mr. Knoppers, as we called him, his real name was Jaap Vecht, also left depressed. His wife and two daughters did not return from Germany and not so long after that his only son was killed in a traffic accident. Some weeks later a very good friend of our family came to visit us and told us of the list with all the names of the dead. My mother dreadfully disappointed with the sad news, got ill- depressed and weak with a Hepatitis infection, I did as well.

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It must have been the Red Cross Organization, who took everybody to places specially arranged, to be washed with hot running water, which we did not feel for a long time. After drying up we were sprayed with D.D.T. powder, I had long hair, we all looked like white ghosts walking around a crazy look. All against flees and lice. One more thing I can remember so well was our clothes and shoes. During the last years of the war shops were closed there was not anything more to buy. Rather at the beginning of the war, my mother as she usually thought ahead of times bought wooden-shoes (klompen in Dutch) in big sizes. We stuffed them with straw; they were warm for our feet and easy to change. Socks, trousers and skirts became smaller and smaller, or we were growing!! I got open wounds on both of my legs as a result of the lack of food. Summer came and wasps sat on the rough flesh eating! It took months to heal. After all those years we somehow slowly recovered World War II was behind us. My mother lived on courageously until the year 1997, when she was 97 years old. After the war, we were left without a house or income. Support from the 1940-45 Foundation kept us living many years after the war. I always think even today how she did it all, how she kept us all alive, where she got the strength from? One reason for sure was the great love for my father; she kept in mind for such a long time.

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In 1980 she was awarded with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations in Yad Vashem. I think she fully deserved this recognition - a few moments opposite so many hardships she endured and lived through amazingly.

My sisters & brothers, my husband and I, my two children and some friends attended the ceremony. She planted the Tree, a hard and cold wind blowing from over the hills. We stood there silently, the only thing my mother said: So father must have endured it in the very cold of the winters, the many months he lived there only in his striped pyjama, working, loading rocks for making tunnels, until his tragic death at the end. We left Yad Vashem to start the preparation for the BarMitzvah party of my son, Gilad, 13 years old the Jewish custom for boys celebrating of becoming the age of adolescence. I am living in Israel since 1961, married with two children and now four grandchildren as well, in Kiryat Tivon. Life goes on and we were part of it.
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Sonia H. Boissevain- v.Tienhoven 1943

Yad Vashem Built on the hills of Jerusalem A feeling of loneliness Rising up, listening to the sounds To the echoes of the past. Every person with a heart and soul There to be remembered at long last Leaving the period 1940-45 behind The biggest crimes ever happened In mankind.

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Mother Sonia, eldest daughter Marit, eldest son Bob, daughter Son, father Bob, Youngest daughter Hester next to Charles her twin brother, brother Willem. Summer 1943

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