Maas Johanna (Bovenkerk)

Maas-Bovenkerk, Johanna Elizabeth Hendrika During her youth in the Dutch Indies (later Indonesia), where her father worked for the Dutch authorities, Johanna Bovenkerk, born in 1905, became painfully aware of the unequal ways people were treated. Thus, when back to the Netherlands for studies, she became involved in helping German Jewish refugees, among them Malie Mansbacher, who found a home with Johanna. As soon as Johanna (called Jopie by her friends) had finished nursing school in Amsterdam in 1937, she left for Spain with a group of 700 others in order to fight the regime of General Franco, where she worked in various hospitals for two and a half years. Once back in the Netherlands, her Dutch citizenship was revoked and as an active member of the Communist Party she was under constant police surveillance. Once the Netherlands was invaded in May 1940, Johanna became active in resistance activities, and was one of the founders of the Communist underground paper De Waarheid, that was printed in the cellar of her home. When a fellow resistance worker was arrested, Johanna had to go into hiding for some time. Subsequently, she rented a place elsewhere in the city, where there would be enough space to hide both German Jewish refugees as well as Dutch Jews who were in desperate need of help ever since the summer of 1942 and the start of the deportations to the camps in the East. Johanna prepared hiding places under the stairs, initially intended to hide Eduard and Judith Poons and two young children. However, as the hiding area was too small, and they wanted to stay together they moved on and in 1943 were caught and deported to Sobibor where they were murdered. Their place was then taken by Wilhelm (b. 1902) and Ruth Lutterkort (née Mendershausen, b. 1903), German Jewish refugees, who stayed in hiding with Johanna for over two years until the liberation in May 1945. For the couple Meijer and Suze Weinberg, and their son Sylvain (born 1927) Johannamanaged to find a hiding place elsewhere, and also for the well-known Socialist, Sam de Wolff, and his wife. Johanna no longer had any social life of her own, as she did not want to endanger the Jews in hiding in her home. Together with her friend Hendricus (Henk) Maas, active in the same resistance cell, and whom she married in April 1945, she also arranged for false papers, food stamps, hiding addresses and moral support for many more throughout the war. Johanna Maas-Bovenkerk passed away in 2005 at the age of 100. On January 29, 2006, Yad Vashem recognized Johanna Elizabeth Hendrika Maas-Bovenkerk as Righteous among the Nations.