Donker Adriaan & Anna (Vallenduuk)

Donker, Adriaan & Anna Margaretha (Vallenduuk) Adriaan (Aart) and Anna Donker of Bilthoven, Utrecht, saved the lives of the Slagers, a Jewish family from the same town. The two families met in the late 1930s, before the occupation of Holland, when the Donkers rented an apartment in the building where David Slager had a garage. When David was captured and taken to a German prisoner-of-war camp, the Donkers looked after his wife, Rosalie. David was later released. When the order for the Jews to report for deportation was issued Aart and Anna visited the Slagers and found Rosalie packing bags for the family. They pleaded with her not to report for deportation, and the next day went back on bicycles and convinced them to come and hide. Aart and Anna took the Slagers’ three-year-old son, Emile, with them and looked after him for a few months while the parents found a place in the city of Utrecht. The daughter, Marianne, was hidden in Rotterdam, but when she was forced to leave, Anna also found her a hiding place in Utrecht. Aart was arrested because of his underground activities---but released a short while later. However, months afterwards, the police were still following him. During this time, his wife continued with their underground activities, doing so out of humanitarian principles and as a protest against the German occupation. On March 19, 1985, Yad Vashem recognized Adriaan Donker and his wife, Anna Donker-Vallenduuk, as Righteous Among the Nations.