Johtje and Aart Vos

Johtje and Aart Vos were Resistance workers during World War II. They saved 36 lives during the war by letting people hide in their home.

Early years

Johtje Vos was born Johanna Kuyper on December 29, 1909, in Amersfoort, the Netherlands.[1] Johtje and Aart were married in 1942, and the couple had four children.

World War II

Johtje and Aart Vos began their resistance work when friends were moved into the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. One friend asked the couple to take a piano so it would not be destroyed by the Germans, as well as a child the friend was hiding. The Voses agreed.[2] Another friend asked that the couple take in a suitcase of valuables, once again to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis. Once again, the two agreed.[2] Before long, the couple joined the Laren Resistance Group.[3]

The Voses agreed to use their home as a hiding space for those on the run from Nazis. The couple lived on a dead-end street, backing up to the woods, making transporting individuals discreetly an easier task.[3] To facilitate this, Aart Vos constructed a tunnel about 55 yards in length from the back of the Vos house to the woods. Additionally, the Resistance group received help from a local police officer who would give advanced warnings about the Gestapo raids.[3] Needless to say, the group was highly organized. Johtje and Aart split the work: Johtje oversaw the household matters as well as the emotional well-being of the refugees, and Aart supplied enough food and maintained communication with the larger Resistance community.[4]

Because the group was so organized, Jewish people seeking refuge would come to the Vos house bearing the appropriate identification paper work. In one instance, Johtje Vos had to turn away a man begging for asylum because he failed to produce ID papers. It was later discovered that he was a German informant, trying to trick the Voses into revealing their work.[5] Unfortunately, the run-ins with the Gestapo did not cease. The Gestapo arrested a member of the Resistance—Jan—and the Voses had to retrieve contraband from his home before the Gestapo found it. As soon as the contraband was buried in the backyard, the Gestapo pulled up to the Vos house with Jan in tow, bloodied from torture and interrogation.[6] The Gestapo officers gave Johtje Vos an ultimatum: tell us where the information is, or Jan dies.[7] Johtje Vos devised a genius plan with the help of Jan's wife, Mieke: Mieke would leave and return twenty minutes later, pretending to have found the contraband at Jan's brother's house (his brother, in reality, was safe in hiding).[8] Jan was spared, and those hiding out at the Vos house were spared, undiscovered.[9]

Legacy

The Voses saved 36 lives during the war. The couple was honored with the Righteous Among the Nations award.[9] The couple so loved a young girl who sought refuge at their home they tried to adopt her after the war. The Jewish community, however, worked to retrieve Jewish children from their rescuers; for this reason, the young girl was instead taken to an orphanage.[4]

Johtje Vos was interviewed for Gay Block and Malka Drucker's book Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust which was released in 1992. Vos, in this interview, disagreed with the characterization of the couple's actions as heroic: “I want to say right away that the words ‘hero’ and ‘righteous gentile’ are terribly misplaced.”[10]

In 1999, Johtje Vos wrote a memoir about their experiences titled The End of the Tunnel.[9] Aart Vos passed away in 1990, Johtja on October 10, 2007.[1][9] The couple is survived by fifteen grandchildren and fifteen great-grandchildren.[10]

References

  1. 1 2 "Johtje Vos".
  2. 1 2 Atwood, Kathryn J. Women Heroes of World War II. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. p. 109. ISBN 9781556529610.
  3. 1 2 3 Atwood, Kathryn J. Women Heroes of World War II. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. p. 110. ISBN 9781556529610.
  4. 1 2 Fogelman, Eva (17 August 2011). "Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust". Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group – via Google Books.
  5. ↑ Atwood, Kathryn J. Women Heroes of World War II. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. p. 111. ISBN 9781556529610.
  6. ↑ Atwood, Kathryn J. Women Heroes of World War II. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. pp. 112–113. ISBN 9781556529610.
  7. ↑ Atwood, Kathryn J. Women Heroes of World War II. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. p. 113. ISBN 9781556529610.
  8. ↑ Atwood, Kathryn J. Women Heroes of World War II. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. pp. 113–114. ISBN 9781556529610.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Atwood, Kathryn J. Women Heroes of World War II. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. p. 115. ISBN 9781556529610.
  10. 1 2 "Johtje Vos, Who Saved Wartime Jews, Dies at 97". The New York Times. 4 November 2007.
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