Busschers Janne

Busschers, Janne During the war, Janne Busschers lived with her family in Almelo, Overijssel. Her neighbors, the de Zwaan-Kulman* family were active in the underground and hid Jews in their home. In times of danger, when the SS were searching for Anton de Zwaan, the Busscherses took the fugitives into their home, thereby endangering their own lives. Rosa Heumann was a German Jewish refugee living in Holland when the war broke out. She had left Germany for Almelo in 1938. In Almelo, she befriended the Busschers family. On account of this friendship, when the Germans occupied Holland and the lives of Jews were threatened, Janne and her family began to take care of Rosa. The Busscherses obtained food for her and, with the help of a friend who was a doctor, acquired documents that enabled her to avoid deportation until 1943. When it was no longer possible to postpone Rosa’s deportation “legally”, the Busscherses offered to hide her in their home. However, since Rosa had a hearing impediment, she feared that she would be putting the Busschers family in far too much danger by being in their midst as she would not be able to hear approaching danger and therefore would not be able to react in time. Thus the Busscherses reluctantly escorted Rosa to a transport after she had given them some of her personal possessions for safekeeping. After she arrived at Westerbork, she continued to receive food packages from the Busschers family. From Westerbork, she was transported elsewhere and she never returned. After the war, the Busscherses sent Rosa’s belongings to her son Uri, who was by then living in Israel. During the war, the Busscherses also occasionally hid two sisters, Robina and Gerda Kolthof, who were hiding permanently with the de Zwaan-Kuilman family but were moved to the Busscherses in times of danger. The Busschers family lived very modestly during the war and extended help to Jews without accepting any payment. On March 23, 1971, Yad Vashem recognized JanneBusschers as Righteous Among the Nations.