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4 Families Bloemkoper and Meijer In early November 1939, the director of the home told us that two Jewish families in Leiden had agreed to have Eva and me live with them. While we were going to be separated, the two families both lived on Thorbeckestraat. I did not mind leaving Amsterdam, but the thought of being separated from Eva made me quite apprehensive. The opportunity for us to live in private homes was envied by many of the girls who stayed behind. Less than a year later their own lives would change dramatically. Eva’s hosts and mine turned out to be quite different , in circumstances and outlook and in their eventual fate. I felt that Family Bloemkoper was pleased to see me. Three little boys looked me over curiously as their mother introduced us to each other: “This is Ruth, and this is Jacob, our oldest; he is five. This is four-year-old Eli, and there, in the playpen, is our youngest, Abrammetje. He has just turned one.” Missing in this lineup was their only girl, three-year-old Roosje, who was visiting her grandparents in Amsterdam. All were dark-haired and brown-eyed but did not otherwise look or act alike. I was excited to be with them, but not having had younger siblings or brothers, I had no idea what to expect. In Amsterdam I had enjoyed taking care of the two smallest boys, and I was sure that I would get to like these little boys as well. Their father, Victor Bloemkoper, was thirty, and their mother, Jeanette Bloemkoper de Hartog, twenty-nine. They appeared older to me. When Father heard about our impending move to Leiden, he sent us instructionsforournewsurroundings :“Evenifthesefamilieshavehelpwith their household chores, you must always be helpful. And if they have children, you must be sure to get on well with them.” Whether as a result of his admonitions or not, I resolved to be on my very best behavior. And fear of doing something wrong Families Bloemkoper and Meijer 57 made me act very diffidently. In Amsterdam, because I missed my mother, I had sought out the friendship of the aides, but it took me a while to feel at ease with Mevrouw Bloemkoper. They immediately asked me to call them “Aunt” and “Uncle.” Try as I might, I could not do it and avoided calling them anything. Finally they promised me a bar of chocolate if I succeeded in calling them “Aunt” and “Uncle”—without backsliding—for a whole week. It was hard work, but I earned my chocolate. The Bloemkopers lived in a small, modern two-storied row house, and I got their guest room in the attic. It had flowered wallpaper and simple white furniture , and I liked that room a lot. But it made me uncomfortable to have to share my bed with one or the other of Mvr. Bloemkoper’s younger sisters when they came for visits. They were the daughters of her father, Mijnheer de Hartog, and his second wife, the aunt who became her loving stepmother and brought her up when Jeanette’s mother died giving birth to her. She was a sister of Jeanette’s mother. The De Hartog and Bloemkoper families all accepted my presence and seemed to feel quite at ease with me. A month after I arrived in Leiden, I got to spend a week on vacation with the De Hartog family in Amsterdam and felt sorry when it was over. Mijnheer de Hartog was a retired post office official, who gave the impression of not needing to worry unduly, and he enjoyed having the grandchildren visit with him. When I think just how many similarly blameless lives in around a dozen European countries were destroyed by the evil that overran Europe and Russia, it is not fathomable to this day. The house in Leiden had small front and back gardens, and a few purple and white asters and cosmos with their wispy leaves were still in bloom when I arrived. The living room and the rarely used front parlor were comfortably furnished. Compared to the large, old-fashioned house with its unwieldy old oak furniture at home in Hannover, and the large halls of the Burgerweeshuis, everything seemed miniaturized. Mijn. Bloemkoper was the cantor, teacher, and shochet (ritual slaughterer) of the small Jewish community. The family was strictly Orthodox. Every Sabbath I attended the services led by Mijn. Bloemkoper. The small synagogue, while quite inconspicuous on the outside...

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