Velthuis Berend & Barbera (Billenkamp)

Velthuis, Berend & Barbera Hansje Elisabeth (Billenkamp) A few months before the end of the war, David Bamberg, his wife, Bertha, and three other family members---the Coevordens, an aunt and uncle, and Sam Levitus---were faced with a life-threatening dilemma. All of them were hiding with a poor farmer, but a recently arrived refugee had been arrested and they feared he would reveal their secret to his interrogators. David then remembered his friend and colleague Berend Velthuis, with whom he used to teach at the elementary school in Winschoten, Groningen. Berend had since become the principal of a school in Nieuw-Weerdinge, Drenthe, and was active in the Resistance. David turned to him for help and Berend and his wife, Barbera, immediately agreed to shelter the Bambergs and the other fugitives, who arrived there in February 1945 after a terrifying hike across the heath in the dark. A local farmer promised to help at least part of the family to escape to Switzerland, but ran away with their money and it was thought possible that he would betray them all. After only two weeks, the refugees were forced to leave for separate hiding places, arranged by the Velthuises. After the war, Berend was knighted in the Order of Orange Nassau for his wartime Resistance work. On August 21, 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Berend Velthuis and his wife, Barbera Hansje Elisabeth Velthuis-Billenkamp, as Righteous Among the Nations.