Bruijn Jan & Thea (Roos)

Bruijn, Jan & Thea (Roos) Jan and Thea Bruijn hid Aliza Tichauer (later Peretz) in their home in Alkmaar, North Holland, from August 1943 until March 1944, when she was forced to move for reasons of safety. Aliza was born in 1920 in Breslau, Germany, and arrived in Holland in July 1939 to participate in a Hachshara camp at the Werkdorp, Wieringermeer. However, in March 1941, the program was cut short when the Germans ordered all the members of the Werkdorp to move to Amsterdam. There, Aliza found work as a housekeeper for several Jewish families. On May 23, 1943, the Hechalutz underground provided Aliza with false identity papers bearing the name Pieternella Johanna Bechthold-Braun. She was then taken to the Roos* family in the city of Utrecht and stayed there for two months before moving to the home of Mr. Roos’s sister and brother-in-law, Thea and Jan Bruijn, in Alkmaar. During the war, the entire Roos family was involved in sheltering Jews. Jan and Thea made Aliza feel very welcome in their home and treated her as part of the family. They told friends and neighbors that Aliza was a housekeeper. Jan and Thea were devout Christians and believed that it was their duty to help the persecuted. Before Aliza arrived at their home, they had already hidden two young Jewish women, including Eva Fink, and while Aliza was there they hid a young man named Jack Zwaneweber (later Yitzhak Zanbar) for a month. In March 1944, when the Bruijns’ neighbors began to suspect that Aliza was Jewish, she was forced to relocate and moved in with the Reuvers* family in Soest, Utrecht, where she remained until the end of the war. On February 15, 1979, Yad Vashem recognized Jan Bruijn and his wife, Thea Bruijn-Roos, as Righteous Among the Nations.