Brounstein - Two among the righteous few : a story of courage in the Holocaust

Acknowledgments

Much of the historical account that shapes this book comes from a self-published Dutch book titled Enkelen Van De Enkelen , translated to mean the Few of the Few . It was put together by Willie van Tongeren, the brother-in-law of Irene Wijnakkers daughter, Simone. Irene is the youngest of the five children of Frans and Mien. She is the keeper of this family history record that is based on audiotapes Frans Wijnakker made a year or so before his death in 1994 so his story from the war could be documented. Interviews were also conducted with the eldest Wijnakker child, Nellie Kolenbrander, who has the most memories from this period among the family alive today and with Shulamit Schwarz, a.k.a. Freetje, the first person Frans and Mien took into hiding. Contributions for this book came as well from Nannie Beekman, the Yad Vashem staff member from the Righteous Among the Nations Department, who provided information that the museum had on record about Frans and Mien Wijnakker. My wonderful wife, Leah Baars, also provided valuable assistance, from Dutch translation to historical background.

Thanks also go to Shoshana Baars-Stanton, who took a personal interest in this story and gave thoughtful and useful feedback that helped shaped it. Thanks too to friend and near-family member Roger Margulies for making the important technology contributions for the book.

Thanks too to the staff at Tate Publishing for giving me the opportunity to get this important story told: Sunnie Atkins, my acquisitions representative; Hillary
Atkinson and Cathy Rivera, my editors; Laura Hawkins, my copy editor; April Marciszewski, my cover designer; Sarah Kirchen, my layout designer, and my marketing representative.

A special thanks goes to the five children of Frans and Mien WijnakkerNellie, Jan, Thijs, Frans, Jr., and Irenefor allowing and encouraging this writer to take this story forward.

Introduction

Nestled up in the hills on the western side of the city of Jerusalem is a place where thousands of people from around the world visit daily to learn about the tragic period of history from 1933 to known as the Holocaust. The name of this place is Yad Vashem. It was established in 1953 by an act of the Knesset, Israels parliament, to serve as an education, research, and historical center in remembrance of the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazi Party machine led by Adolf Hitler.

That number, six million, can be almost unimaginable to the average person. What it means in terms of the Holocaust is that two-thirds of the Jewish population that existed in Europe prior to the start of World War II perished at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators by wars end in May 1945 . These were targeted victims of murder, not victims of war where millions more soldiers and civilians died from the most destructive war in humankinds history. The Holocaust also included another five million murdered victims on Hitlers list of undesirables, such as gypsies, the handicapped, homosexuals, political opponents, and those of Slavic heritage.

So this tragedy would never be forgotten is why Yad Vashem was created. Amidst the many parts of this fascinating historical museum is a section called the Righteous Among the Nations, a section that recognizes the non-Jews, primarily Christians, who carried out acts of courage to save the lives of Jews during the Holocaust. On the grounds outside the walls of the museum are plaques and planted trees that pay tribute to these courageous people, the area often referred to as the Avenue of the Righteous. In fact, the 1993 Academy Award Winning movie Schindlers List featured one of the best known of these righteous few, Oskar Schindler. Another twenty-three thousand-plus righteous people who have received this special honor from Yad Vashem join him.

The actions these people took to help Jews included creating papers for false identities, hiding them, helping them get away, or providing other means of refuge. Such actions may be hard for some to grasp as daring and bold if absorbed in the world of 2010 with its high-action, high-drama movies, video games, and sensationalized stories in the media and Internet.

Make no mistake about it; everyone recognized in Yad Vashems Avenue of the Righteous truly participated in real-life drama that put his or her life at great risk. The ugly scourge of anti-Semitism was not just confined to Adolf Hitlers Germany in the 1930 s and 1940 s. By mid- 1940 , Germany had conquered most of the countries of Europe outside of Great Britain and the Soviet Union. In most every one of these countries, the Nazis found sympathizers who gladly assisted them in the brutalizing, murdering, or rounding up of Jews to be shipped off to the concentration camps in Poland and elsewhere. Of course, millions more chose to look the other way or were just indifferent to the plight of Jews among their citizenry.

On top of this setting was the brutality the Nazi henchman carried out to anyone caught trying to help save Jews. Death was the outcome in most every case, either on the spot by being beaten to death, burned to death, or shot, or if one was lucky enough to just be arrested, the concentration camp was usually the destination with dying either in the gas chambers or through backbreaking labor and starvation the most common outcome.

In light of this hostile climate at that time in Europe (and elsewhere around the world) and the dangerous risks involved, the actions of this small minority of non-Jews recognized by Yad Vashem were truly remarkable and courageous. In Section H on the grounds in the Avenue of the Righteous, you will find the plaque of two such people, a couple from a small town in the Netherlands named Franciscus and Hermina Wijnakker.

This book tells the story of this Christian couple, commonly referred to as Frans and Mien, and the actions they took in the time of the Holocaust that eventually earned them this special honor at Yad Vashem. Among the many heroic acts Frans and Mien performed was taking on a baby born to a young Jewish couple in hiding as their own so she could be savedthe wife of this very author.

Please enjoy the journey ahead.

Chapter One:
May 2009 Historic Moment

Subject: Historic Moment

Date: May , 2009 , : a.m.

Dear Shoshana and Alana,

Today is Tuesday, May , 2009 . I am writing to share more than just travel stories from a wonderful journey your mom and I are having. I want to document something to you that I hope you will find of much value for your own family history.

While I know some of the history, and you probably do too, coming in contact with the reality of it merges mind and heart into something of great significance. I will explain shortly.

Being in the Netherlands, much more than in the United States, one is reminded of World War II and the Holocaust as well. When we started our trip in Amsterdam, we visited the Anne Frank house. It is a wonderful educational museum. Last Friday, we visited the museum and site of Camp Westerbork. Before World War II, there were , Jews who lived in the Netherlands. One hundred seven thousand perished during the Holocaust. Westerbork was the deportation center the Nazis used to ship the Dutch Jews off to the death camps in Poland, mostly Auschwitz and Sobibor.

We arrived last evening in the city of Eindhoven in the south of the country. Of the places your moms family lived prior to immigrating to the U.S., Eindhoven was where they were the longest. Before arriving there yesterday, we stopped in an old town named Ravenstein. It is the big small town in an area of villages in a southern section of the Netherlands. It is also near where your grandparents, Opa and Oma, were hidden during the war.

As we stop and walk around the charming 1600 s historic downtown of Ravenstein, all two blocks of it, we spot a tourist information office. We go in, and your mom asks the staff members about the location of an old church in the nearby small town of Dieden and if the home that once belonged to a Frans Wijnakker is still next to it. For the older folks of this area, which the three office people on hand were, the name of Frans Wijnakker is a notable one.