Lubben Maria

Lubben, Maria Maria Lubben lived in Antwerp with her two sons, John, 18, and Christian, 16. During the war, her husband worked in Germany and returned home only on short periods of leave. In the summer of 1942, after the first roundup of Jews in the city, the Lubbens noticed that newcomers were living in the apartment next to theirs. The new tenants were Mrs. Fanny Laufman and her four children: Pauline (Pnina), 8, Rachel, 5, Zwi, 3, and Lilianne, 2. The father, Benjamin Laufman, had been arrested and deported to Auschwitz where he was murdered. Fanny escaped arrest with the children and decided to move out of Antwerp’s Jewish quarter to a non-Jewish neighborhood. Upon their arrival, Maria Lubben immediately guessed her new neighbors were Jewish and assured them of her help. Through her brother who was linked with the underground, she provided the Laufmans with false identity papers. Since they rarely left their apartment, she helped them by doing the shopping and taking the children out for walks. When threats of German searches arose, Maria brought the children over at her apartment to sleep. She acted as the head of the fugitive family and provided them with warmth and tenderness. Soon, she advised Mrs. Laufman to disperse the children for security reasons. She found a hiding place in a convent in Borsbeek, near Antwerp, for the three oldest. The youngest, Lilianne, was sheltered by the Deblommes family who had intended to adopt a child. While at the convent, Zwi fell sick and needed hospital care where the staff discovered he was circumcised. The nuns then refused to let him back and returned the three children to their mother. At that point, Mrs. Laufman took Lilianne back since she preferred to keep the Laufman family united. The burden of their safety fell entirely upon Maria who kept them safe and sound until the end of the war. The two families kept up a long lasting friendship. On May 23, 2004, Yad Vashem recognized Maria Lubben asRighteous Among the Nations.