TORONTO — The Canadian Society for Yad Vashem honoured two Dutch families posthumously Oct. 8 for rescuing and sheltering Jews during the Holocaust.
The descendents of Gert Jan Kottelenberg, his brother, Jan, and his wife, Hermina, and the children and grandchildren of Bob and Maria de Jongh received a Righteous Among the Nations medal and certificate on behalf of their families at a dinner in Toronto.
The Kottelenberg and de Jongh families also united with the descendants of the Jews who their parents and grandparents rescued.
Vera Hartog, who found refuge in the de Jongh household when she was just 12, was at the dinner. She recalled living with the family and their children from April 1944 to the end of the war.
“It was the first time I was alone,” Hartog said, after her mother died of cancer and another family took in her sister, Fenna. “During a short time, I was brought to different addresses and all friendly people. I was crying most of the time.”
“[Bob de Jongh] was looking for a more permanent address for me. And he asked me if I wanted to be in a family with children. I jumped and shouted, ‘Oh yes! A family with children!’”
The Kottelenberg children were united with the first- and second-generation descendants of Julius Zion, whom the Kottelenbergs hid on their farm.
In the fall of 1942, the Kottelenbergs, who were members of the Dutch Underground, took in Julius, his sister Johanna and her fiancé, Istvan.
Although the Nazis apprehended Johanna, Istvan and their baby – who were later murdered at the Sobibor extermination camp – Julius fled the home before the Germans arrived.
He hid under a nearby bridge until it was dark and then walked back to his hometown, Eibergen. He lived there until his death in 1990, at age 85.
“As families, we value Yad Vashem’s award on their work performed 70 years ago because it has tremendous teaching value for the generations to come,” Bernie Kottelenberg said. “We didn’t all have a chance to know our grandfathers [Gert Jan and Jan], but their faith and convictions have been passed on.”
The Kottelenbergs and de Jonghs are among 24,811 individuals from 47 countries who have been awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations.
The dinner was co-sponsored by the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Canada is chairing the IHRA this year.
Keynote speaker Jason Kenney, the federal minister for multiculturalism, said he hopes Canada’s investment in Holocaust education and research will blot out the stain of the country’s “ignoble history” of not accepting Jewish refugees who fled Europe before and during the war.
“It was not until our projects to join IHRA that we began to come to terms… with that history of wartime and immigration restriction measures on the victims of European anti-Semitism,” Kenney said.
“These and other projects have helped us to face our own history honestly and have provided a platform through which [the government] could express our regret for the government of Canada’s policy of exclusion in the 1930s and ’40s.”
At the dinner, Kenney also named the winner and runner-up of an international poster competition with the theme “Keeping the Memory Alive – Journeys through the Holocaust.” The winner, Caitlin McGinn, and runner-up Carling Hind are both Canadian students at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver.
McGinn and Hind worked on their posters in one six-hour block during exam time.
“A lot of people found it very challenging, due to the nature of such a complex issue,” Hind said. “For whatever reason, we were able to find a personal connection to it, and trust that.”
Posters from the winner, runner-up and Canadian finalists can be found on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website.