Linschoten Pieter & Maria (Everse); Daughter: Maria

Linschoten, Pieter & Maria Elisabeth (Everse) & Maria Elisabeth Mozes and Sophia Bouwman (née Prins) were hidden with the van Enk* family in Oldebroek, Gelderland, while their two children, Lion and Koosje, were being sheltered elsewhere. Sophia was due to give birth to her third child in September 1944, which posed a great danger to their rescuers. Maria Linschoten and her father, Pieter, were the first people who offered to help the Bouwmans through this period. The Bouwmans had known Maria from before the war, when Mozes’s brother Isaac had employed her in his company in Utrecht. (The Linschotens had already been sheltering Mozes’s mother and aunt since September 1943, and they remained with the Linschotens until August 1945.) Pieter was the managing director of the Volkswoningen Foundation (subsidized housing corporations), which belonged to the Utrecht Municipality Department for Asocial Families. Pieter was an experienced social worker. One of the Linschotens’ daughters worked at an office in Utrecht where she met Mr. Vivian Rowe*. He and his wife, a childless couple, considered adopting a baby and approached Pieter for assistance. Pieter suggested that the couple adopt the baby that the Boumans were due to have. To avoid detection, Pieter instructed Sophia to give birth at the Volkswoningen Foundation, and Maria Linschoten helped with the many measures taken to ensure that the birth went smoothly. Thus, at the end of July, when Sophia entered her ninth month of pregnancy, the Bouwmans moved to Utrecht. On September 2, the baby was born. The following night, under the cover of darkness and after the curfew, Pieter took the newborn boy on his bicycle to the Rowes. Mozes and Sophia stayed with the Linschotens until June 1945, one month after the liberation. On November 24, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Pieter Linschoten, his wife, Maria Elisabeth Linschoten-Everse, and their daughter, Maria Elisabeth Linschoten, as Righteous Among the Nations.