Memories of my Amsterdam sister or brother

During the war years 1943-1944, about 123 Jewish children were smuggled out of Amsterdam and placed with families in North Limburg. Much is known about how these children experienced their time in hiding. Research has also been carried out into the reactions of the children from the Limburg host families to the stay in their midst of the young people in hiding. To support and supplement this research, this interview project interviews people who, as children, received an Amsterdam ‘brother or sister’. The interviews reveal in a penetrating manner how they experienced the arrival of the foreign children in their family. It becomes clear how it was for them to suddenly have to share their parents with young Jewish people in hiding, who were accepted into their family as household members.    

The Jewish children – mostly from the crèche opposite the Hollandsche Schouwburg – were smuggled out of the capital by an Amsterdam student resistance group led by Piet Meerburg. In northern Limburg, the hiding organisation for the children was in the hands of Hanna van de Voort, a midwife from Tienray. She was assisted in her resistance work by the young Nijmegen student Nico Dohmen, who had gone into hiding in Tienray because he had not signed the declaration of loyalty.