Can you give me more information on this person for my research paper.Information on where they hid and what happened to them durring the Holocaust?
Well, Brooke, I can only tell you what I remember. Johann was Dutch and because he was dead when I met Trude, I don't know much about him except he must have been a wonderful man. Trude made me swear that I would never tell she was Jewish, because her parents sent her from Vienna when she was 12 years old, so she was in Holland after that and everyone assumed she was Dutch. Apparently only Johann knew her history and for that reason he used his huge sailboat to "smuggle" Jews out of Holland. I was on that boat and saw where he had hidden people, one at a time, because there was not that much room. I did meet the U-boat captain that was one of Johann's best friends, and of course he didn't know Trude's background either.
Many people with wealth left Holland to go to Belgium in the 1950's because taxes were high.
I have been in the clock shop which you might have read about connected with Corrie Ten Boom. Here is a link: http://www.corrietenboom.com/ You already have the links for Anne Frank's house. Also, there were other "hidden rooms" in Dutch homes similar to the one I told you about where the underground used to meet.
During the war, my neighbor across the street in Holland was on a ship at sea. They ate a lot of eel so I couldn't wait to try it. It was very tasty but I was still tasting it 3 days later! The neighbors had taken thousands of dollars worth of tulip bulbs, ground them down to make flour, and then could bake. So I would know what that was like, my neighbor baked some "cookies" for me from tulip bulbs and they tasted like "dirt!" In my town the Dutch government was trying to get German tourists to stay in homes but the people still had a bad feeling.
When I asked my husband why the nice "door man" in the local hotel always wore one black leather glove, my husband told me that he had been tortured by the Nazis during the war. I certainly did not want to know what they had done.
Some day you might like to read a book a Danish friend of mine had published recently about what happened in his town when the Germans occupied it. The title is "Horseshoe Island."
Here are some additional siges about the Halocaust survivors where you will find still more ideas for your research:
1. http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/
2. http://www.fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/people/survivor.htm
3. http://history1900s.about.com/cs/survivors/index.htm
4. http://library.thinkquest.org/12663/survivors/
Thank you very much!!!!!!!!!!!