Ouweleen Cornelia

Ouweleen, Cornelia Wilhelmina Hoefsmit, Maria Louise Cornelia (Cok) Ouweleen and Maria Louise (Mies) Hoefsmit lived in the same house. For many years before the war they both worked as teachers at the van Deth Jewish vocational School in Amsterdam. In 1942, when the Germans forbade non-Jews to teach in Jewish schools, Cok and Mies were forced to leave their jobs. In 1942, Esther Laub asked her former teachers to hide her from the Germans. After they agreed, Esther told them that she had arrived in Holland from Germany in 1938 with a brother and three younger sisters, who all lived in a (Jewish) children’s home. Esther wanted assistance for her siblings as well. After thinking the problem over, Cok and Mies accompanied Esther, Sarah, and Abraham in broad daylight - but after the children had removed their yellow stars - to their home. They then took Hannah to relatives and Shulamith to friends. All the siblings therefore remained in Amsterdam. In the meantime, Cok and Mies had found employment in a non-Jewish school, where they worked until five o’clock every day. Thus, they only had the evenings free to shop, cook, and feed the children, as well as teaching them how to enter the hideout quickly and silently in case of emergency. As time passed, more of Cok and Mies’s former pupils began to ask for help. After awhile they succeeded in finding hideouts for Esther, Sarah, and Abraham in the province of Limburg, through the mediation of H. J. Vullinghs*, the Grubbenvorst parish priest. Thus, their own home became available for hiding other fugitive children, who, in turn, were moved on to Grubbenvorst when other children needed help. Altogether, Cok and Mies took care of 15 children aged between eight and 18. Each time a child had to change locations, one of the women personally accompanied the child on the train ride. The child was always instructed to sit by the window, to look steadily at the landscape, and to pretend not to hear the questions other travelersasked them. Only Cok and Mies knew the addresses of all their wards. The two women regularly visited the children in their hideouts and provided them with clothes, ration cards, and greetings from friends. For as long as it was possible, Cok and Mies also paid toward the upkeep of “their” children with money donated by wealthy acquaintances. During the course of the war, Cok and Mies also helped adults, both Jews and non-Jews. At certain times, at least six adults slept regularly in their home. The Germans searched the house several times but the teachers always asked innocently: “Do you really imagine that two elderly spinsters like us would care to get involved with such nonsense?” On November 24, 1968, Yad Vashem recognized Cornelia Wilhelmina Ouweleen and Maria Louise Hoefsmit as Righteous Among the Nations.