The Girl with the Blue Coat

The WWII

Submitted to: Grade 7/8 Submitted by: Mrs. Arlidge Language Arts December 2, 2018

Germany

The Canada Netherlands

Den Haag

0 40 40 kilometers

. WWII 1939-1945 . Despite the fact that when war broke out, The Netherlands declared itself neutral, Adolph Hitler ordered its invasion anyway, without first making a Declaration of War. . German invasion of The Netherlands – May, 1940 . The Dutch Coast was critical for the German Army to launch air attacks against Britain. • The Dutch government was totally unprepared • They had outdated equipment and no real chance of succeeding in defending the country • Although the Germans met with fierce resistance from the Dutch, the Dutch defenders had enormous causalities. • It was quickly clear that the British and French armies would be unable to reach and defend The Netherlands in time. The City of Rotterdam after the German bombing in May, 1940 • The German army was nervous about sending in troops to Rotterdam. Instead they demanded surrender and when that was rejected they bombed the city entirely. • During the so-called “Rotterdam Blitz,” between 800 and 900 Dutch civilians were killed • 25,000 homes were destroyed • The bombers' target was the civilian areas of Rotterdam, rather than the town's defenses. • Under pressure from local officials, the garrison commander then surrendered the city and his 10,000 men on the evening of May 14, 1940 • The Germans warned that if the entire country did not surrender, they would do the same to other Dutch cities, including . • During the four-day campaign, about 2,300 Dutch soldiers were killed • 7,000 soldiers were wounded • Over 3,000 Dutch civilians died. • The invading German army lost 2,200 men, with 7,000 wounded. • In addition, 1,300 German soldiers captured by the Dutch during the campaign, many around The Hague • They were shipped to Britain and remained Prisoners of War for the rest of the war. • All political parties were immediately outlawed in The Netherlands • The only party permitted to continue was a pro- Nazi Dutch party called the Dutch National Socialist Party (NSB) • The long term goal of the Nazi was to completely incorporate The Netherlands into a part of the larger Greater Germanic Reich • Hitler thought very highly of the Dutch people because he believed that they were fellow members of the Aryan, “Master Race.” • Shortly after it was established, the military regime began to persecute the Jews of the Netherlands. • At first, there were no deportations • Only small measures were taken against the Jews. This included things like wearing the identify Star of David; restrictions on movement and confiscation of bank accounts. • In February 1941, the Nazis deported a small group of Dutch Jews to a Concentration Camp • The Dutch reacted with a nationwide protest against the deportations • This was unique in the history of Nazi-occupied Europe. • Although the strike did not accomplish much— its leaders were executed—it was an initial setback for the Germans who had expected to be able to easily deport the Jews and to win over the Dutch to the Nazi cause.[ • Before the strike, the Nazis had installed a Jewish Council. • This was a board of Jewish leaders. • The Jewish Council ultimately served as an instrument for organising the identification and deportation of Jews more efficiently; • the Jews on the council were told and convinced they were helping the Jews. • In May 1942, Jews were ordered to wear the Star of David badges. • Around the same time the Catholic Church of the Netherlands publicly condemned the government's action in a letter read at all Sunday parish services. • As a result, the Nazi government treated the Dutch more harshly • Later in the war, Catholic priests were punished for their defence of the Jewish people and were deported to concentration camps.

Jewish refugee children smuggled aboard Danish fishing boats bound for Sweden, 1943. (US Holocaust Memorial Museum) • Johan van Hulst, a former Dutch senator and teacher renowned for his efforts to save hundreds of Jewish children during , died March 22 at the age of 107, the Dutch announced this week. • As principal of the Reformed Teachers Training College, van Hulst found himself at the center of a growing operation to smuggle Jewish children out of Amsterdam to protect them from Nazi persecution during the Second World War. • The college garden bordered that of a Jewish day-care center, from which hundreds of Jewish children were passed over the garden fence to be temporarily hidden by van Hulst before being collected by members of a children's rescue organization and smuggled to safety. • "Try to imagine 80, 90, perhaps 70 or 100 children standing there, and you have to decide which children to take with you.... That was the most Johan van Hulst – Teacher Dutch Holocaust Hero difficult day of my life," he remembered of the period in 1943 when the Jewish day-care center was due to be cleared out. "You realize that you cannot possibly take all the children with you. You know for a fact that the children you leave behind are going to die. I took twelve with me. Later on I asked myself: 'Why not thirteen?'“ Johan van Hulst • Across the road from Van Hulst's school was the Hollandsche Schouwburg, a former theatre seized by the Nazis in 1941 to be used as a deportation centre. • While the records of those detained there are no longer available, historians believe about 46,000 people were deported from the old theatre over about 18 months up to the end of 1943. • Most ended up at concentration camps in Westerbork in the Netherlands, or Auschwitz and Sobibor in occupied Poland. • The deportation centre's administrator was a German-Jewish man named Walter Süskind, entrusted to run the centre by Nazis who disregarded his Jewish heritage because of his SS links. • Soon after starting his work there however, he noticed that it was easy to help people escape. He falsified arrival numbers, claiming for example that 60 people instead of 75 had arrived on a particular day, and then letting 15 people escape. • His task became easier when, in early 1943, the Nazis took over a crèche across the road from the theatre - and next door to Van Hulst's school - to place Jewish children before deporting them to concentration camps. • Süskind joined forces with the head of the crèche, Henriëtte Pimentel, sneaking children to safety when a tram passed in front of the crèche. • It was only when Pimentel persuaded Van Hulst to join them that their rescue efforts picked up speed. • Their buildings were separated at the back by a hedge. The crèche's nurses would pass children over the hedge to Van Hulst, who would in turn pass them on to Resistance groups who would help hide them. • None of the escapees - whose departures were all agreed by their parents - had been registered as new arrivals, so their disappearances were not spotted. • Only a handful were spirited away at a time - enough not to arouse suspicion. But helping some, while knowing others could not be spared, proved painful to the rescuers.

• "Everyone understood that if 30 children were brought, we could not save 30 children," "We had to make a choice, and one of the most horrible things was to make a choice." • One of the children Van Hulst helped rescue was Lies Caransa, who was smuggled out of the crèche aged four while hiding in a bag. Most of her family was later killed at Sobibor (a Concentration Camp), but she was later reunited with her mother. • "I was not allowed to say goodbye or cuddle my mother and grandmother, because that might make a scene," Lies said. • "I was just allowed to wave. I felt alone and lonely." • In order for the neighbourhood to hide their rescue efforts, they needed to keep on uncomfortably good terms with the Nazis. • Süskind and other staff at the crèche and old theatre still had to continue with their day jobs. And Van Hulst had one trick to convince the Nazis he was on their side. • "Johan had an anecdote," Annemiek Gringold, a curator in Amsterdam's Jewish Cultural Quarter, told the BBC. "His students would be watching the SS guards and he would shout at the students 'Let these people do their job, it's none of your business', while winking at the SS guards, trying to gain their trust. • "He performed an act quite regularly in order to get their confidence." • All of this took place without him once telling his wife Anna what he was doing, as he did not want her to possess compromising information • The rescuers needed a degree of luck too. • When the government sent an inspector to Van Hulst's school without warning, she heard babies crying inside. By chance, the inspector happened to be a member of the Resistance and joined Van Hulst's efforts to move the children to safety. • The end of the operation, when it came, was sudden. • Henriëtte Pimentel was arrested in July 1943, and was killed in Auschwitz in September that year. • That same month, it was announced suddenly that the crèche was to be cleared out. Many children remained inside, and not all could be rescued. • The fact he was not able to save more children haunted him to the end. • "I only think about what I have not been able to do, about those few thousand children that I could not save," "We say those who save one life saves a universe. You saved hundreds of universes. I want to thank you in the name of the Jewish people, but also in the name of humanity."

Couple honoured for hiding Jewish woman from Nazis during Second World War Abbotsford man accepts award on behalf of late grandparents An Abbotsford man recently accepted an award presented posthumously to his grandparents, who hid a Jewish woman in their home in the Netherlands to protect her from the Nazis during the Second World War. Peter Kalkman and his son Matthew received the Righteous Among the Nations award on Nov. 7 during a special ceremony in Vancouver held by the Consulate General of in Toronto and the Canadian Society for

The honour is given to non-Jews who demonstrated extraordinary courage during the Holocaust. Several members of the family were also in attendance for the presentation. Kalkman’s grandparents Rev. Dirk Pieter Kalkman and Klassje Kalkman concealed a Jewish woman – Catharina Six tot Oeterleek-Kuijper – from 1943-45 in their home in Moordrecht, Netherlands. This is the home in the Netherlands of Dirk and Klassje Kalkman, where they hid a Jewish woman during the Second World War. Oeterleek-Kuijper was a widow whose life was in danger – most of her family members had died in concentration camps – and a fellow reverend asked the Kalkmans to take her in. They did so despite great danger to themselves – in Nazi- occupied Europe, the risk of punishment was high to those who helped Jews. The Kalkmans, who had five children, presented Oeterleek-Kuijper to the outside world as an aunt, calling her Tanta Ina. Towards the end of the war, the Germans were short on people to work in factories and other places, and they would have roundups to look for young men who could be taken to Germany to work. Dirk and Klassje Kalkman are shown here with their children (from left) Jannie, Frouk, During these roundups, they also looked for Jews in Wim, Klari and Toos. hiding and workers. A harrowing experience for the family took place during one of these roundups, when the Kalkmans had two boys around the age of 16 hidden beneath the floorboards of their home and Tanta Ina sitting with the rest of the family on the couch. Soldiers stood above the trap door where the young men were hidden as they questioned the family. One of the Kalkmans’ daughters was ill from diphtheria at the time and this prompted the soldiers to hasten their search of the home and of the family’s documents. They left without discovering anyone. Oeterleek-Kuijper went on to live into her 90s in the Netherlands, passing away in 1978. Klassje died in 1959, followed by Dirk 10 years later. They remained in the Netherlands, as did all four of their daughters, two of whom are now deceased. Their only son, Wim – Peter Kalkman’s dad – moved to Toronto in the 1950s and later Vancouver. He died in 2013, but had begun the process of having his parents recognized for their bravery. Peter, a radiologist who has lived in Abbotsford for 25 years and has four sons with his wife Bonnie, continued the process and worked with researchers in the Netherlands to find proof of the family’s history. This resulted in a 111-page document being submitted in 2017 as a nomination for the award. The Righteous Among the Nations is considered one of the most prestigious honours granted by the State of Israel.

• Germany was particularly effective in deporting and killing Jews during its occupation of the Netherlands during WWII • Of the 140,000 Jews in 1941, (including both Dutch Jews and other Jews who had fled to the Netherlands for safety earlier in the war), about 27% survived the war. • the survival rate was much smaller in the Netherlands than in the other western European countries • the German occupiers in the Netherlands were particularly vigorous in comparison to other occupied countries. • The Netherlands had always included religion in its national records • This made it much more difficult for Jews to mask their ethnic and religious identity. • Not all Dutch offered active or passive resistance against the German occupation. • Some Dutch men and women chose or were forced to collaborate with the German regime or joined the German army • Others were actively involved in capturing hiding Jews for a price and delivering them to the German occupiers. • It is estimated that between 8 000 to 9 000 Dutch Jews were identified by Dutch pro-Nazi and were ultimately sent to their death in the German Concentration Camps • The Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation during World War II provided key support to Allied forces beginning in 1944 and through the liberation of the country. • Discovery by the Germans of involvement in the resistance meant an immediate death sentence. • The country's terrain, lack of wilderness and dense population made it difficult to conceal any illicit activities • Because the Netherlands were bordered by German-controlled territory, there was virtually no escape route, except by sea. • Small groups had absolutely no links to other so that if caught, the consequences would be minimalized. • These groups produced forged ration cards, printed counterfeit money, collected intelligence, published underground resistance newspapers, sabotaged phone lines and railways, prepared maps, and distributed food and goods. • After the surrender of The Netherlands, civilians were drafter for the labour force. • Every man between 18 and 45 was forced to work in German factories • These factories were bombed regularly by the western Allies. • Those who refused were forced into hiding. • As food and many other goods were taken out of the Netherlands, rationing increased (with ration books). • At times, the resistance would raid distribution centres to obtain ration cards to be distributed to those in hiding. • For the resistance to succeed, it was sometimes necessary for its members to pretend to collaborate with the Germans. • After the war, this led to difficulties for those who pretended to collaborate when they could not prove they had been in the resistance — something that was difficult because it was in the nature of the job to keep it a secret. • After attempting to defend itself, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch, dreadfully outnumbered and with no chance of defending itself against the German army, surrendered. • The Dutch Government and Royal Family fled to England for safety • The Netherlands remained under German occupation until the defeat of Germany in 1945 • Active resistance was carried out by a minority, which grew in the course of the occupation. • The occupiers deported the majority of the country’s Jewish citizens to . • about 70% of the country's Jewish population were killed during the conflict, a much higher percentage than comparable countries, like Belgium and France. • Uniquely within all German occupied areas, the city of Amsterdam actively organized protests against the persecution of its Jewish citizens. Hannie Schaft, “ The Girl with the Red Hair” Dutch Resistance Fighter

• One of the riskiest activities was hiding and sheltering refugees and enemies of the Nazi regime, Jewish families like the family of Anne Frank, underground operatives, draft-age Dutch, and others who were targeted by the Nazi. • These people were known as onderduikers

Dutch Jewish Prisoners at Buchenwald Concentration Camp. THE SHOES OF THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS. Setting of Girl in the Blue Coat: Amsterdam, 1943

Jewish Quarter – Amsterdam

BOOK REVIEW (Part I: Synapsis – Summary) Amsterdam, 1943. In the middle of a war-torn continent and a war-torn year, Hanneke divides her time between finding and delivering in-demand black market goods, hiding the truth about this work from her parents, and grieving for her boyfriend, Bas, who was killed at the Dutch front lines when the Germans invaded. She is devastated and angry at herself and the world, but she likes to think of her work as a small act of rebellion against the Germans who took Bas away from her. On a day like any other, one of Hanneke’s clients, Mrs. Janssen, reveals that her husband had been harboring his Jewish boss and family in a secret room at his office. When the Germans raided the building and killed him, the family’s daughter escaped and found Mrs. Janssen. Then Mrs. Janssen asks Hanneke to do the impossible: find the Jewish teenager she had been hiding, who vanished from the secret room without a trace. At first, Hanneke refuses to have anything to do with Mrs. Janssen and her dilemma, but she is soon drawn into the web of mystery that the disappearance of this Jewish teenager has spun. As the story unfolds, Hanneke is shown new truths about the resistance, the Nazis and what it means to be a teenager in a divided world. Quote

Girl in the Blue Coat is meticulously researched and taut with suspense, mystery and romance....Each word seems carefully picked, plucked and plotted specifically for the story. I also loved the characters and how flawed they were." About the Author

Right from the first page, I knew I was not reading from a debut novelist. I couldn’t be. In a way, Monica Hesse is not a debut author; she has been writing for the Washington Post for years.

Critique

She is a debut author in the sense that this is her first novel, but this wonderful book does not read like a debut. It is meticulously researched and taut with suspense, mystery and romance. GIRL IN THE BLUE COAT is such a sad and heartbreaking book, but it reads like an action-mystery-romance novel. I do not know how Hesse did it, especially after writing only the facts for so many years. The best thing I can say about this book is how gorgeous the writing is. Each word seems carefully picked, plucked and plotted specifically for the story. I also loved the characters and how flawed they were. They were not heroes or revolutionaries or anything of the sort. They were teenagers trying to find a way to live in a war-ravaged country. Likes/Dislikes

While I loved the characters, I also think there were too many of them. I would frequently confuse one character with another and have to go back and review what exactly was going on --- though that was not too bad of a chore, especially since I loved the writing so much. In addition to there being too many characters, I have to say that I did not like Hanneke that much. I knew why she wanted to find and rescue the Jewish teenager, but I just didn’t believe her motives. Unfortunately, I was not convinced that she really cared whether this girl lived or died, but maybe that was the point. Hanneke was obsessed with the idea of saving someone and redeeming herself, but not as crazy about the actual act of doing it. Either way, I found that Hanneke could have had a little more depth and development. Besides the characters, there was only one other flaw I found in this book: I could predict everything that was going to happen. Usually, I do not mind knowing or predicting events in a story because, honestly, it makes me feel pretty smart when I do. But in a book like this, with so much at stake and such a tense setting, I did not like how predictable it was. In a way, it took away from the storytelling. I did appreciate Hesse’s twists and turns throughout the story, but I saw them all coming, so they did not have the intended effect. Conclusion / Recommendation

Overall, I found GIRL IN THE BLUE COAT to be a vitally important story about Amsterdam, teenagers, and the resistance during World War II. I found myself relating to these teenagers that were living in such a different time than I am in now, which is a feat in on itself. GIRL IN THE BLUE COAT is a story about a young girl’s fight for redemption, freedom and friendship in the midst of a terrible war, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Perfect for fans of Ruta Sepetys’s wonderfully researched young adult historical fiction novels and THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK.

Reviewed by Bryn D. Reviewer, Teen Reads Board Member Publication, April 26, 2017 Date Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering sought-after black market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a small act of rebellion.

On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene, Hanneke is shocked by the older woman's frantic plea to find a person--a Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such dangerous work, but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations that lead her into the heart of the resistance, open her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi war machine, and compel her to take desperate action.

Beautifully written, intricately plotted, and meticulously researched, Girl in the Blue Coat is an extraordinary novel about bravery, grief, and love in impossible times.