Anne Frank, born on June 12, 1929, was the celebrated diarist who described her life while hiding with her family from the Nazis in an Amsterdam, Holland attic. After capture and deportation, she died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in late winter 1945.The following story, first published in 2018, tells the story of another Jewish child who hid with his family in Holland during World War II and survived to share his story.
Anne Frank is one of the most well known figures from the Holocaust. But she and her family were not the only ones to go into hiding to avoid capture by the Nazis and their collaborators. While some Jews lived in the open with changed identities, others, like the Franks physically hid to avoid certain deportation and almost certain death. Dutch Nathan and his family were one of many who relied on others to help them.
Gert “Dutch” Nathan was born on January 5, 1932, in Duren, Germany, the second son of Wilhelm (“Willy”) and Hilde (nee Friesem) Nathan. Willy had a cattle hauling business which extended throughout Europe. He did not have a formal education, but he was street smart—Dutch remembers that his father could “outcalculate a calculator.” The Nathans lived a mostly secular life in Germany, with observation of major Jewish holidays and his mothers’ lighting of Shabbat candles.
In 1938, after Hitler’s rise, the family moved sixty miles west to Valkenburg, The Netherlands. “Holland had proclaimed neutrality when war broke out in September 1939, as they had done in World I,” said Dutch, “so my father thought our family would be safe.”Willy took a job with the De Valk bus company, a former competitor, where he continued his cattle business.
On May 10, 1940, Hitler’s forces invaded the self-proclaimed “neutral” country. Five days later, after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. By 1942, the situation began to deteriorate for fellow Jews. Willy made the following arrangements with his friend, Johan Kengen, a member of the Dutch Underground: If the Nathans were in danger of deportment. Willy would pay for the family to stay in the home of Kengen’s fiancé’s aunt and uncle for “a few days” until the Nathans could be spirited away to England. Willy also made arrangements for neighbors to move most of the furniture and bedding to the house next door. Whether the neighbors were paid or volunteered as an anti-Nazi action still remains a mystery to Dutch.
The plan was put into effect a few month later. While walking from the bus station into the De Valk building, Willy was stopped by a friend and fellow employee: Germans were waiting for him to arrest him and deport him and his family to the concentration camp.
Father quickly stole a bike and peddled the ten miles home. Dutch and his older brother Fredo were instructed to leave their house one hour apart to walk the two miles to a house “located on the right hand side just before the road crossed the railroad tracks” with a warning to “not speak to a soul.” Willy and Hilde arrived later that evening, expecting to hear soon from the Underground of their clandestine trip to England.
Unfortunately, the days turned into week, and the Nathans were still in hiding. Other people, including downed pilots, had priority in the Underground escape plan. To further cover the facts of extra activity in the “safe house,” an elaborate ruse was planned. Johan and the elderly couple’s niece Ann quickly arranged their wedding. At the reception, Johan picked a huge fight with Ann’s parents, who resolved that they would have no contact with the couple until Johan apologized. The newlyweds moved into the house by the railroad tracks, bringing the number to eight.
As weeks turned into months, tensions grew. The Nathan’s spent most of their time in a small main floor bedroom. Ann was prone to hysterical outbursts, and Willy and Johan would have to physically restrain her to keep her from running outside and giving their situation away. Meanwhile, Hilde was anguishing over the fact that she had not been able bring her parents with them. She was haunted by their deaths in the concentration camp for the rest of her life.
Johan’s government job determining the number of animals that farmers could slaughtered provided a means to get extra meat and milk, but food was still scarce. Dutch and Fredo, 10 and 12 respectively, spent most of their days quietly reading books and avoiding the shaded windows so no shadows would be seen.
Along with possible discovery, the occupants lived in fear of the potential impact of living near the railroad track.The noise from the passing trains provided an extra buffer but also an extra danger: Allies strafed German trains. They hoped that these attacks would not hit the house, either killing all of them or forcing the Nathans out into the open, thus exposing their dark secret.
In the second half of 1944, the southern half of Holland was liberated by American troops. (The remaining areas of the Netherlands were not liberated until May 1945.) The Nathans stayed inside for a few more days to make sure they were safe.
Once they realized they were actually free, the Nathans stepped into fresh air for the first time in twenty-six months. “I walked a few feet and collapsed,” remembered Dutch. When asked if he had been overcome with emotion, he said, “I hadn’t used my legs in 26 months and initially had no muscle tone to walk more than a few feet.
Before they could move back into their home, however, Americans bombed Valkenburg. One of the casualties was the Nathan’s home. “No one understood why the brick home next door burned so much,” said Dutch. “The furniture hidden in the attic acted like a tinderbox, and flames shot up in the air for hours.”
In May 1945, the remaining areas of the Netherlands were liberated. Free but homeless, the Nathan family moved into a neighbor’s home until 1946, when they obtained visas to move to United States, where several of Willy’s siblings lived. Willy built a crate the size of a truck and filled it with everything they had accumulated since the end of the war—including a piano.
Dutch, now sixteen, enrolled in City College to learn English, adding to his previous background of German, French, and Dutch. At 18, he enlisted in the army and volunteered to go to South Korea. When he returned home, he found employment in whatever “made money.”
In 1979, Dutch, who had been married twice before, met Sue Cohen. He proposed shortly after the meeting, but it took ten years for her to say yes. During this time, Dutch started the Stretch Lace, a Sharon Massachusetts-based company that manufactured and sold elastic shoe laces. (“Tie once, never Tie Again!”) Although his invention was successful, Dutch admitted that he didn’t know marketing and sales. He eventually sold the business, but Easy Laces are still available today and are worn by such celebrities as Brooke Shields. They lived in Sharon for most of their married life before retiring to Kissimmee, Florida, in 2007.
In 1982, Sue and he were invited by residents of Duren, Germany, to return to the Nathan’s original home. They were treated royally and met with church members as well as school children. Sue’s main mantra to everyone she met was “Just remember! The Holocaust DID happen.” Although their visit was supposed to last a week, Dutch felt uncomfortable. He rented a car, and the two of them toured Europe, driving over 4000 miles before returning to Massachusetts
Almost seventy-five years after his liberation, Dutch graciously shared the story that he spent most of his life trying to put those terrifying time behind him. “I try not to think about those things,” said Dutch. “It is over and cannot be undone. His story, however, as those of the fewer and fewer remaining Holocaust survivors, must be told. As Sue Nathan told the people in Germany during the 1982 visit, “Remember. The Holocaust DID happen.” And we Jews and righteous people everywhere will never forget.
A version of this article originally appeared in the November 8, 2018, issue of the Jewish World News, a bi-weekly subscription-based newspaper in upstate New York.
There Goes My Heart 