Heel van Gerard & Marie (Gelderman)

Heel van, Gerard Louis & Marie Gertude (Gelderman) Marie Gertrude (Molly) van Heel-Gelderman and Dora Kann, both from Eindhoven, North Brabant, had been friends since their school days. In 1942, when the razzias started, Molly suggested that Dora hide her two daughters, Judith and Elise, aged eight and 11 respectively. In November of that year, the two girls moved in with the van Heels, where they stayed until the liberation in 1944. Judith and Elise were introduced as relations from Rotterdam, whose family had been killed in the bombing of the city in 1940. For their own safety, their family name was changed to Kann, so that they would sound more Dutch, and they attended a local Christian elementary school. During their time with the van Heels, they referred to Gerard and Molly as “uncle” and “aunt.” Just before the end of the war, Gerard and Molly were forced to house an SD officer. Instead of relocating Judith and Elise, they kept up their fiction and succeeded in convincing him too that they were from Rotterdam. Gerard van Heel, Molly, and her brother, Joan Gelderman*, were all involved in underground activities. During the war, Judith later recalled, many Jews found refuge in their home, mostly temporarily, on their way to permanent hideouts. Judith also recalled that Gerard manufactured false identity cards. Throughout all their activities, the van Heels had to be especially cautious because Joan was a well-known underground worker and had been apprehended by the Germans and executed. After the war Judith and Elise were picked up by their grandmother, who had survived the war in hiding. Neither of their parents survived the war. On February 13, 1968, Yad Vashem recognized Gerard Louis van Heel and his wife, Marie Gertrude van Heel-Gelderman, as Righteous Among the Nations.