Two Among the Righteous Few by Brounstein Marty

Author:Brounstein, Marty [Brounstein, Marty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tate Publishing
Published: 2012-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

As part of his brokering work, Frans also called upon another local woman, Mien van Uden. She had a large family where a new baby was born every year. Help was needed in the household but too expensive to get.

“Mien, I can get a helper for you. She’s a girl from Amsterdam. Conditions there are bad, and there is not enough to eat. You don’t have to pay anything, and you’ll receive ten guilders in addition while she is here,” Frans told her.

“Frans, that sounds too good to be true,” Mien van Uden said.

“It is true,” Frans reassured her. “Now, she is a Jewish woman. Don’t talk to anyone about that.”

“And if people come here to get milk?” she asked.

“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “The girl knows her story. Things are going badly in Amsterdam.”

Mien agreed, and shortly afterward Fien Vos arrived. This so-called young girl had been temporarily hidden in Dieden and had a daughter herself who was three years old. That daughter came to be hidden at the Wijnakker house, although not for long, as the Wijnakkers had a very full house. The little girl was then hidden with a family in Klein-Amerika in the province of Limburg.

All went well, and Fien Vos stayed until the war’s end.

Next, together with Long John, Frans went to see Truuske de Koster in Demen. She lived in a large house next to the parsonage. Her father lived with her. He had dementia.

When she greeted the two gentlemen, Truuske turned to Frans and said, “I think you are at the wrong place. I can’t buy anything. Father Simons doesn’t know that everything is costing more. He also complains about other things on top of that.”

“Yes, Truuske, that’s the way he is,” Frans said. “But we did not come to sell you anything. You will get sixty guilders per week, maybe as much as eighty, if you can help us. I think you have two empty rooms upstairs, right?”

“Yes. But eighty guilders?” she said in puzzlement.

“Listen well, Truuske,” Frans said softly yet firmly, knowing that Truuske was a good Christian woman. “We want to bring a couple to stay with you in your house for a while. They are Jewish, and it is very dangerous right now. If you will do this, you will get to heaven, and they will say, ‘Truuske, you did good in the world.’”

Long John joined in the conversation. They spoke further about the dangers involved in hiding Jews. Stories were appearing in the newspapers recently about what happened when Nazis found Jews in hiding. Usually those in hiding along with those who helped them hide would be arrested by the SS and shipped off to concentration camps in Poland.

Undeterred, Truuske invited Frans and Long John in to see her empty rooms. “Come up and look. I don’t know if it is good enough.”

They went upstairs to see. Walking around in the rooms, Frans said, “Truuske, this is good.”

“They are naturally used to better things?” she asked.

“That is not a problem,” Frans replied.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.