Kolff Willem & Janke (Huidekoper)

Kolff, Willem Johan Kolff-Huidekoper, Janke Cornelia Willem Johan Kolff, born in 1911, was a nephrologists at the University Medical Center in the northern city of Groningen in the Netherlands, where he invented the first artificial kidney. During his tenure between 1938 and 1941, one of his Jewish colleagues, Dr. L. Meijler, was fired from his job in November 1941, when Jews no longer were allowed to work in government or university frameworks. As a protest, Dr. Kolff resigned and moved to the town of Kampen in the province of Overijssel, where he became the head of the local hospital’s internal medicine department. In the fall of 1942, some months after the onset of the deportations of the Jews to the camps in the East, Dr. Meijler tried to find hiding addresses for his children and himself. Even though his wife was not Jewish, he and his children were registered as Jews and he feared for their lives. A place was found for Erik and his sister Annetje in the town of Almelo (prov. Overijssel), but they had to leave soon after their arrival. They were then taken to the village of Nijverdal (prov. Gelderland) but as they talked too much, their hiding address became dangerous. At that point, they had to be split up. Annetje was taken to a former colleague, Dr. Albada* from Akkrum. Dr. Meijler then turned to Dr. Kolff, his former colleague, and asked him for help in hiding his then five-year-old son Erik (b. 1938). The Kolff couple themselves agreed to hide the boy. They, in turn, informed their own son Jack, who was about the same age, that a boy would come live with them for awhile. As Dr. Kolff was active in resistance circles, Erik could not stay for very long, and three months after his arrival he was moved on. He was temporarily taken to Dr. Kolff’s father at a sanatorium, from there to his last hiding address. After the war, Erik Meijler called his own son after his rescuer, Dr. Kolff. The Meijlers stayed in touch with the Kolff family evenafter the latter immigrated to the United States in 1950. On February 29, 2012, Yad Vashem recognized Willem Johan Kolff and Janke Cornelia Kolff-Huidekoper as Righteous Among the Nations.