Stroomenbergh Jan & Johanna ; Son: Jan ; Daughter: Johanna

Stroomenbergh, Jan Hendrik & Johanna Susanna & Jan Halpern, Johanna Susanna (Stroomenbergh) The entire Stroomenbergh family was fiercely committed to saving the “People of the Book,” even if it meant putting their own lives in danger on a daily basis. In early 1943, five-year-old Arnold Bouwman, his parents, aunt and uncle, from Zeist, Utrecht, were looking for a new hiding place. A local underground activist arranged to take the boy to the Stroomenberghs in nearby Driebergen, Utrecht, where he stayed until May 1945. Jan and Johanna Stroomenbergh had two adult children, also called Jan and Johanna (later Halpern). They were devout Protestants and Jan Sr. was caretaker of the local strictly Calvinist Gereformeerde church. Despite the enormous age difference, the Stroomenberghs took in young Arnold and treated him like a member of the family. Only the immediate family and the local minister knew the real identity of the boy. To everyone else, he was a nephew who had been evacuated from The Hague. Whenever there was a warning of an impending search, daughter Johanna, would take Arnold on the back of her bicycle to friends until the danger passed. The Stroomenbergh house was a center of Resistance activity. Johanna Jr. was a courier for the underground, accompanying Jews to hiding places, delivering messages and food coupons. On January 23, 1945, Jan Jr., dressed in a Nazi uniform, took part in a successful raid on a police station in Zeist, freeing about 12 mostly Jewish prisoners. He also arranged temporary hiding places for them in the church until he could secure more permanent hideouts. One of the freed prisoners, Ernst Stein, stayed with the Stroomenberghs until the liberation. During the hunger winter of 1944--1945, the Stroomenberghs managed to feed all the members of the household. The family also sheltered Abraham Wijnschenk and his wife, Judith (née Baars), for about three months. On January 30, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Jan Hendrik Stroomenbergh,his wife, Johanna Susanna Stroomenbergh, and their children, Jan Stroomenbergh and Johanna Susanna Halpern-Stroomenbergh, as Righteous Among the Nations.