Ader Bastiaan & Johanna (Appels)

Ader, Bastiaan Jan & Johanna Adriana (Appels) At the age of 17 Bastiaan (Bas) Ader went to study theology in the city of Utrecht and simultaneously worked as an organist in Lochem, Gelderland. Bas had boundless energy and liked to direct it towards a cause that he believed in. In Bas’s final year of studies for the ministry, in the mid-1930s, he set off on a six-month tour of the Holy Land. He had been married for a year by this time and his wife Johanna (Jo) stayed behind in Amsterdam, where she worked on a newspaper. In 1938 Bas and Jo moved to Nieuw Beerta, Groningen, where Bas took up his first post. Nieuw Beerta was a long-neglected parish, far from the urban center of the city of Groningen. As was the custom in rural parishes the young couple was given a spacious home surrounded by a large garden. In the years to come this property became a hideout for many Jewish fugitives. The Aders cheerfully undertook the task of reviving and rebuilding the congregation and its sister community. As Bas ministered to the spiritual needs of the community, Jo took it upon herself to organize women’s clubs and fill in for her husband whenever he was away. Lilly Samuel was the first Jewish refugee to be hidden in the Aders’ parsonage. Lilly was a friend of Jo’s from Amsterdam. A friend of Lilly's soon joined her at the hideout and from that time on it was determined that people should hide in pairs as much as possible. It was believed that two people would provide support and comfort to each other during the long hours of the day when absolute silence had to be maintained. For the family hiding the Jews, the danger was no greater if they hid two people---it was equally forbidden to hide one or 100 people. Shortly afterwards, two more Jewish girls went into hiding in the Aders’ home and they were soon joined by two of Jo’s nephews who were evading forced labor in Germany. Bas, or Uncle Bas as his wards called him, also known as Gerard van Zaanen when he worked with the Resistance, was hardly ever home. From the early stages of the occupation, he journeyed frequently to and from Amsterdam, to the Joodsche Invalide, once a Jewish old age home, to offer hiding places to people who had no money or contacts. Bas’s entire family---parents, sister, in-laws---assisted him in his effort to save and hide as many Jews as possible. For the duration of the war, Bas kept in touch with all the people he hid. He personally took them food coupons, brought them news from friends, and encouraged them. In early 1944, the Germans began to scrutinize Bas’s activities carefully. He decided that his wards should move to Limburg. How could one move a group of fugitives such a long distance without being caught? Bas came up with an original solution: German soldiers returning from their furloughs in Germany traveled on a late-afternoon train that arrived in Holland close to midnight. When the train pulled into the pitch-dark station, the soldiers would be fast asleep. As the train was filled with German soldiers, there was no document control and so Bas was able to sneak the fugitives onto the train, where they could mingle with the few non-military Dutchmen and thus travel across the country. In the spring and summer of 1944 the Jews were moved mainly to Brunssum and Heerlen in Limburg, and some to Amsterdam. Some of Bas’s charges survived the war in their new hideouts but some were caught, transported to Westerbork, and from there to Poland, where they perished. As the war went on and the German search for Bas intensified, he was forever stepping up the level of his illegal activities. He continued to contact Jews who needed hiding places, arranged hideouts for them, and then procured false papers, food coupons, food, medication, and clothing for them. The German authorities eventually caught up with him in Haarlem after someone he considered a close friend betrayed him while he was on a mission to place a young girl in hiding. Bas was imprisoned in August 1944. He was executed on November 22, 1944, one month before his 35th birthday and 16 days after his second son, Eric, was born. During the war, Jo was always actively involved in Bas’s rescue attempts. She maintained the house in the parsonage with the help of a few servants and helpers while the number of hidden charges grew to nine. Between 1942 and 1944, she had two children, the second born while she herself was in Winschoten fleeing the Germans. During this time, she was also incarcerated for a few days and interrogated. Jo kept a diary for the duration of the war in which she wrote down her thoughts and feelings as well as the daily incidents. After the war, she published the diary under the title Een Groninger Pastorie in de Storm (“A Groningen Parsonage in the Storm”). In all, the Aders saved between 200 and 300 people during the course of the war. On November 22, 1967, Yad Vashem recognized Bastiaan Jan Ader and his wife, Johanna Adriana Ader-Appels, as Righteous Among the Nations