Zefat Albertus & Aaltje (Heres)

Zefat, Albert & Aaltje (Heres) Albert and Aaltje Zefat were leaders of a small network of rescuers who helped 20 Jews survive the war hidden in a dugout in the woods. The Zefats lived with their two daughters and a son on a farm in Valthe, Drenthe. Their two teenage daughters had both suffered from polio and needed special care, but this did not stop Albert (Bertus) and Aaltje from devoting themselves to saving Jewish lives. In August 1942, Annechiena (Giena) Warringa* of Emmen met Bertus to discuss hiding a number of Jews. Giena had been sheltering Ab van Dien, a young Jewish man from Emmen who had been accused of subversive activities, but it was now impossible for the fugitive to stay at her parents’ house. Both Giena and Bertus, who were unaffiliated to any church, were shocked at the fate of their fellow Jewish citizens under the German occupation. At first, the Zefats hid 12 people in a chicken coop behind their house. The coop was camouflaged so as to appear abandoned but was fitted with a heating stove and electricity. Bertus and Aaltje provided the fugitives with food and fuel but knew that the arrangement could not last after suspicions were aroused during several visits to their house. They thus decided to move the Jews into the woods surrounding the village. The men among the fugitives went out to dig a pit. They built a slanted roof with iron poles and a telephone pole was placed in the center to support it. The roof was then covered with foliage and the structure camouflaged by trees affixed to the roof. A well was dug in the corner of the structure for drinking water and a stove and furniture was brought to the hideout. Under cover of darkness, food, coal, and peat could be brought from the village by those involved in the rescue. In January 1943, the hiding place was almost discovered by poachers and the refugees moved back to the village for a while. A few days later, the hideout was dismantled and reconstructed farther away from Valthe. In thenew dugout, the number of refugees rose to 20. These people were sustained by the Zefats and others until the end of the war, a period of two and a half years. Throughout this time, Bertus was in daily contact with the hidden fugitives. He often visited them in the woods and some of them came to see him at his house several times a week to pick up food, listen to the radio, and enjoy the couple’s hospitality. Before long, Bertus’s activities attracted unwanted attention and he was arrested and imprisoned in Exloo. Under interrogation, he refused to divulge any information. On July 27, 1944, at five in the morning, the Grüne Polizei drove to the Zefats’ house. They searched the backyard and, not finding anyone, threatened to shoot Bertus if he did not speak. Bertus still refused to say anything and was indeed shot to death outside his own home. On March 8, 1972, Yad Vashem recognized Albert Zefat and his wife, Aaltje Zefat-Heres, as Righteous Among the Nations.