Schuurman Gerrit & Grada (Klein)& Grada (Willink)

Schuurman, Gerrit Jan Schuurman-Klein Willink, Grada Berendina In the fall of 1942, the newly married Jewish Mendels couple, Emanuel, b.1909, and Hanna, b.1915 (née de Beer), knocked on the door of Gerrit Jan and Grada Schuurman, both 53 years old, at their farm in the village of Vragender (prov. Gelderland). The Schuurmans had two children, 18-year-old Gerrit Willem and Johanna, age 16. Gerrit Jan Schuurman had known Emanuel Mendels, from nearby Groenlo, from earlier business transactions. Emanuel was a cattle dealer in the area. After a first wave of arrests of Jewish men in the area in October 1941, Gerrit Jan had proposed to Emanuel that he come and hide in his home. The Schuurmans realized the personal risk they took, but as devout Calvinists (Gereformeerd) they felt they had to help the People of the Book. The Mendels fled their home through a back door, just in the nick of time, as the search for the town’s Jews had started. Initially, the Mendels stayed indoors at all times since none was to know of their presence with the Schuurmans. In 1943, the risk of keeping the Mendels couple hidden increased dramatically, after it was learned that Hanna’s parents had been betrayed in their hiding place and the hiding address of Hanna and Emanuel at the Schuurmans was known to them. Even though Gerrit Jan and Grada were extremely concerned, they continued to keep the Mendels. However, the hiding arrangement had to be changed. Whereas the couple continued to stay in the Schuurman home during the day, they were now to sleep behind the chicken coop at a distance of about 250 meters from the farmhouse. This precaution was taken because collaborators and local police were searching especially at night for forced labor dodgers as well as for Jews. To add to the level of danger for the Schuurmans, three SS officers billeted in their home in early 1945 for some weeks and slept in the kitchen. From then on, Emanuel Mendels stayed out of the farmhouse all together, takingon the role of a farmhand, whereas Hanna posed as kitchen help. Both were supposedly refugees from the western part of the country where hunger and cold had caused many people to flee to the rural east of the country. The Mendels saw the liberation of the area in early April 1945 at the Schuurmans’ farm. On November 6, 2005, Yad Vashem recognized Gerrit Jan Schuurman and Grada Schuurman-Klein Willink, as Righteous Among the Nations.