Dijk van Fedde

Dijk van, Fedde In October 1943, the Germans went to seize the Wagenaar family from their home in Amsterdam. However, the two grown-up sons managed to flee to the van Drooge* family, business colleagues of their father. The van Drooges contacted the underground and Sal Wagenaar (later Sal Ganor) was placed in hiding with a sculptor from Amsterdam before being moved to Haarlem. After awhile, Sal was relocated to Lemmer, Friesland, where the local underground leader, Dirk Onderweegs* took him to the Fokkema* family and then, two months later, to the home of Fedde van Dijk and his wife. Fedde and his wife were motivated to help Sal by their religious and humanitarian convictions. One evening, Sal went for a short walk along an unknown path and ran into a group of German soldiers. At first they thought that Sal was a spy, but they soon realized that he was actually a Jew in hiding. The soldiers asked him many questions and although Sal knew that at least one of them understood that he was a Jew, the officer suddenly let him go. “Perhaps he too was Righteous Among the Nations,” wrote Sal in his testimony to Yad Vashem. After this incident, Sal could no longer remain hidden with the van Dijks and so he moved in with the Kuiper* family. On June 18, 1972, Yad Vashem recognized Fedde van Dijk as Righteous Among the Nations.