Five Brothers and a War

Jews in Holland

Jaap van der Heiden and Bertus had played soccer for the same team since they were seven or eight years old. While they had been football buddies they never had become friends off the pitch. One reason was because they lived in different sections of the city, but the other reason was because “Japie” (pronounced “Yappy”) was Jewish and he attended synagogue with his family each week. Because his family was Jewish, they were forced to wear the Star of David on their clothes anytime they left home. Usually on Saturday, after he had attended his synagogue, the two boys would meet at a pre arranged corner to go biking off to their game. One particular Saturday, he didn’t arrive. He had always made it to the meetings until this day. After waiting for a while Bertus decided that Japie had likely taken ill and went on to join his football team. When all of the youngsters were in the dressing room prior to the match, the coach informed them that the Gestapo had arrested Jaap and his entire family during a night raid. Jaap was 13 or 14 years old. His brother must have been 16, while his sister, a beautiful young lady, must have been around 18 or 19 years old. Bertus’ team won that game convincingly that afternoon, but there was no joy. No one had any idea what had happened and no one really had any hope of ever seeing them again. Surprisingly, after the war was over, Jaap’s older sister, Sarah, showed up one Saturday in the football clubhouse with the older brother of another football buddy, Rudy Beukers, who had lived across from the van Pelts when they lived on the Tomatenstraat. Rudy’s older brother, Frans, had played for years in the first team of the third division team before all sports activities were banned by the Germans. Of course Jaap’s sister was welcomed with hugs by many of the attendees in the clubhouse. But the story she told was very bittersweet. Sarah had returned a few weeks before and had surprised the Beukers family with her sudden and unexpected appearance. But the happy part of the story ended there. She had revealed that she and her mother had been separated from her father and brothers the same day they were arrested and she never saw them again. She and her mother had been taken to what the Germans euphemistically called a “processing camp” or a “holding camp”. Over the next few weeks they had been transferred to different concentration camps and consequently they had never seen each other anymore either. But apparently Sarah’s good looks meant that she had been kept alive in order to serve as a camp “prostitute”, although that is probably a misnomer. Sex slave is a better description. The Germans had two forms of sex slaves: those serving the German soldiers, and those serving as rewards for concentration camp victims in exchange for very good service to the war effort. Sarah reported that she initially refused to participate in the plan, but then she was tortured with cigarette burns on various parts of her body, so she gave in. Sarah van der Heiden and Frans Beukers were married in 1946. Three months after that, Bertus went overseas with the army and by the time he came back to Holland, the Beukers family had moved away and he consequently lost contact with them.

van Pelt

Five Brothers and a War

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