Heeckeren van Willem & Johanna (Boon)

Heeckeren van, Willem Jan & Johanna Margaretha (Boon) Werner and Louise Weinberg, a Jewish couple, moved to the Netherlands in 1939 and settled first in Deventer and then in Apeldoorn, Gelderland, where they had a baby, Susanne (Susie), born on July 6, 1941. In the spring of 1942, the Weinbergs decided to look for a hiding place for Susie. A few months later, when the situation seemed to be improving, Susie returned home to her parents. Then, in January 1943, when a number of Jews in the provinces were ordered to move to Amsterdam, it became clear that in order to save the child’s life she would have to go into hiding permanently. The decision was eventually implemented in May 1943, when Susie was taken by a non-Jewish cousin by marriage to the home of Baron Willem van Heeckeren and his wife, Baroness Johanna (Jenny) van Heeckeren, in Eindhoven. Willem was an engineer with Philips and the father of four sons and a daughter. Susie was made to feel very much at home with the family. There were other Jews also hidden in the van Heeckerens’ home: Thea Perlmutter (later Hirshberg), born in Vienna in 1924, and Lotti Wahrhaftig (later Siesel), born in Berlin in 1926. Lotti stayed with the van Heeckerens for only a few months. Thea, who had come to the Netherlands with her brother on a Kindertransport in January 1939, also arrived at the van Heeckerens from the Loosdrecht children’s home, but only after passing through several other hiding places first. She stayed with Willem and Jenny until the end of the war. Willem and Jenny treated all their charges warmly, humanely, and compassionately. After the war, four-year-old Susie was given back to her parents when they returned from Bergen-Belsen. Willem, Jenny, their children, and the Weinbergs later moved to the United States, where they remained close. Thea also immigrated to the US but she lost contact with her wartime rescuers until the Weinbergs located her in 1978. Lotti moved to Israel. On May 28, 1978, Yad Vashemrecognized Willem Jan van Heeckeren and his wife, Johanna Margaretha van Heeckeren-Boon, as Righteous Among the Nations.