Klaassen Peter & Geertjen (Bos)

Klaassen, Peter Klaassen-Bos, Geertjen Hendrika Abraham (Arthur) Philips, born in 1920, was mobilized into the Dutch army when the war broke out. He was wounded in battle and was taken to a convalescence home. In the summer of 1942, when the deportations of the Jews to ”work in the East” started, he was spirited out of there by members of an underground group. After a number of temporary hiding addresses, he was taken in by Peter and Geertjen Klaassen in Harderwijk (prov. Gelderland). They ran a small farm with ducks and geese. The Klaassens lived close by a railroad leading east to Germany. Since members of a local resistance group had sabotaged the railway line a number of times in order to free men being taken to forced labor, there was a constant German presence near the Klaassen home. Because of the increased danger of discovery, Abraham would be hidden in the goose house in times of house searches. On a number of such occasions, Peter Klaassen kept the Germans busy so that Abraham had enough time to reach his hideout. In the fall of 1944, Abraham contracted tuberculosis, but was nevertheless allowed to stay on with them “because they felt that it was their religious duty to protect a Jew in danger”. Peter and Geertjen allowed Abraham’s wife, Wilhelmina Philips-van Geldere who was in hiding elsewhere, to come to their home to take care of her husband. When Abraham, who had false identity papers, had to be hospitalized, Wilhelmina stayed on with the Klaassens for some time. After Abraham’s release, a hotel room in the town was rented for the couple, where they stayed under their false identities until the liberation of the area in April 1945. The Klaassen and Philips families kept in touch also after the war. On September 23, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Peter Klaassen and Geertjen Hendrika Klaassen-Bos, as Righteous Among the Nations.