Louwers Marie (Mees)

Louwers, Marie (Mees) Marie (Mieke) Mees, born in Castricum, studied medicine in Amsterdam. She joined the Amsterdam Women’s Student Union (AVSV) in 1942. In the spring of 1943, when she could no longer continue studying, she focused instead on recruiting people for the Amsterdam Student Group* (ASG). In May 1943, she and a girlfriend picked up nine Jewish children from the Central Station in Amsterdam and took them by train to Geleen, Limburg. Colleagues of Arie van Mansum* were supposed to collect the children at the station, but there was no one there. After some discreet inquiries, they were sent to a miner’s family who took in all nine children and gave the two exhausted women a hot meal. Until late 1944, Mieke repeatedly made risky train trips to addresses in Limburg, Friesland, and sometimes Overijssel, made more perilous when the children looked particularly Jewish. In December 1943, Mieke took 18-year-old Alida Montezinos to the Blankevoorts* in Dedemsvaart, Overijssel, where Alida was warmly welcomed and where she stayed until the end of the war. Mieke often fetched Jewish children from the crèche in Amsterdam, escorting those who looked Jewish to Tienray, Limburg, where Hanna van de Voort* and Nico Dohmen* found places for 123 Jews to hide. Sometimes Mieke turned up with adults, including Sonja and Arie Ossendrijver. When Hanna van de Voort was arrested in July 1944, Mieke immediately made her way to the Sipo office in Eindhoven, North Brabant, to try to secure her release. The officer in charge took a fancy to Mieke and she promised to go out with him in exchange for the release of “that silly little woman from Tienray.” Hanna was released, but Mieke did not turn up for the date. Mieke’s final act of resistance was also her most dangerous. On November 17, 1944, she set out from Amsterdam on her bicycle, carrying the bill for the postwar treatment of Jewish children who had been in hiding. Four days later she succeeded in crossing the Waal River nearVarik, Gelderland and a few days later the bill was safely delivered in Eindhoven. Mieke then began working for the Shock Troop Regiment, a Dutch unit, where she met Pieter Louwers, whom she later married. On February 15, 1977, Yad Vashem recognized Marie Louwers-Mees as Righteous Among the Nations.