Award recognizes bravery of family who protected Jews
Hartgert van Engelen received one of Israel’s highest honours Tuesday, recognizing his late parents’ selflessness and bravery for sheltering Jewish families from German soldiers and Dutch Nazis during the Second World War.
Albertus and Gerrigje van Engelen were presented a Righteous Among the Nations award posthumously at the Beth Israel Synagogue. The honour is given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
“My family did what any normal humans would do,” the 87-year-old said. He balked at the idea of calling his family heroes.
“We did our humanitarian duty.” During 1942, as Dutch Jews were being transported to labour camps, as many as seven Jews, including four from the same family, sought refuge in the van Engelen home in the small village of Soest in the German-occupied Netherlands.
To protect everyone, blinds drawn across the front windows of the house were never reopened and two hiding places were built, one below the main floor accessed through a closet and another in a side wall of the master bedroom.
The van Engelens would receive tip-offs before their home was raided, so the Jewish family would be snuck out under the cover of darkness to another safe house.
Another Jewish man would flee into a dense forest area.
Once the raids were over, they would all return.
More than 26,000 have received recognition since the award was established in 1963.
There are 24 recipients of the Righteous Among the Nations award living in Canada.