Gils van Adrianus & Bertha (Hemert van)

Gils van, Adrianus & Bertha Gerarda (van Hemert) Before the war, Bertha (Bep) van Gils worked for a Jewish family. In 1942, when the deportation of Jews commenced, Bep decided to help her former employers. Consequently, Bep and her husband, Adrianus (Adriaan), offered their home in Alphen-aan-de-Rijn, South Holland, as a hideout. Adrianus and Bep lived in a small three-bedroom row house with their three small children. Nevertheless, before long they were sheltering seven Jews there, including the Braasem family (the father, Asher, the daughters, Rebecca, Rachel, and Greta, and Greta’s husband, Abraham Lopez-Cardozo), Hans Bloemendal, and Ferdinand Bayer. The house was located near a station of the German Field Gendarmerie. Only very few people knew that the van Gilses were sheltering people. Even the van Gilses’ three-year-old daughter was trained not to mention the “lodgers” to anyone. The fugitives spent most of their time in the back room, and during local razzias hid under the floor. During their time there, those hiding were only requested to pay a tiny amount to their hosts, despite the fact that the van Gilses were a poor family. As the war progressed, food became scarce. The van Gilses did not have enough ration cards to feed all the people in their home. Adrianus illegally procured extra food cards in order to ensure that everyone could be fed. Whatever food they managed to come by, everyone shared equally. During the course of the war, Adrianus and Bep also referred a number of Jews to other safe addresses. They encouraged other residents of Alphen-aan-de-Rijn to open their homes to Jewish fugitives. Adrianus and Bep also offered temporary shelter to people like Siegfried Pekel and Susanna Pekel-de Leeuw who had been forced to leave their hideouts. All those who were afforded a permanent shelter with Adrianus and Bep survived the war. On September 2, 1977, Yad Vashem recognized Adrianus van Gils and his wife, Bertha Gerarda van Gils-van Hemert, asRighteous Among the Nations.