Our Honourees
The Story of Righteous Among the Nations Marie Francoise Borel
Marie Francoise Borel
The Kwiatek family with Marie Francoise Borel (far left).
Paulette Kwiatek’s wedding
Eugene and Esther Kaufman were married in 1934. After the birth of their daughter Helene in 1936, Eugene and Esther migrated to Paris, France, where they worked as furriers in the Parisian district of Les Lilas.
In 1942, Esther Kaufman was arrested by the German authorities and imprisoned in The Drancy Internment Camp in Paris, where Jews were held prior to being deported to extermination camps. Since Eugene Kaufman’s fur trade was in high demand by the occupation authorities, Eugene was successful at freeing his wife, claiming he needed her help in his trade as a furrier.
Esther’s experiences in the camp brought home the stark and tragic reality that the Jews of Paris were in grave danger. As a result, Eugene and Esther decided it was time for their family to search for a safe shelter.
Fortunately, the Kaufmans’ good friends- the Kwiatek family- put them in contact with their friend and neighbour, Marie Francoise Borel. Marie Francoise offered Eugene, Esther and their little girl refuge in a small house with two rooms in Romainville, close to Paris. The Kaufmans lived there from June 1942 to August 1944. It was clear that Marie’s selfless act had saved the Kaufman family, as their previous apartment was “visited” and “sealed” by the German authorities.
Soon after, the Kwiatek family was faced with mortal danger of their own. Mr. Kwiatek, a hat and glove maker from Poland had moved to Les Lilas with his wife, Faiga, and two young daughters, Paulette and Therese, in 1933.
In June of 1941, Mr. Kwiatek was jailed in the Pithiviers camp and then transported to Auschwitz. Mrs. Kwiatek, now alone, was fortunate to receive some aid from her gentile neighbours; at night, Faiga Kwiatek would leave her two daughters in the care of a wet nurse. However, in June of 1943, an informant disclosed the location of the two young girls, and Paulette and Therese, age 7 and 3 at the time, were arrested by the Gendarme (French police) and taken to Paris. Fortunately, a family friend intervened and the girls were released.
Following this event, Marie Francoise offered Faiga Kwiatek and her two daughters shelter in her little country home in the area of Ville Vert near Limours (today part of the Essonne province) where they lived from June 1943-1945.
Faiga assisted with the agricultural duties and the family enjoyed the loving and protective treatment from all of their surrounding neighbours, who well knew the circumstances of how the Kwiatek family came to their village. They lived a sheltered and calm life and Marie Francoise treated Paulette and Therese like her natural grandchildren.
After liberation, Mrs. Kwiatek and her eldest daughter, Paulette, returned to Les Lilas, while Therese continued to live with Marie Francoise for a few more months. In time, Mr. Kwiatek, who had survived Auschwitz, came to reclaim his daughter Therese and the two returned to Les Lilas, where the family was reunited.
Helene Kaufman and Therese Hollander (nee Kwiatek) asked Yad Vashem to award Mrs. Marie Francoise Borel with the Righteous Among the Nations title, in recognition of her actions in saving the lives of Eugene, Esther and Helene Kaufman and Faiga, Paulette and Therese Kwiatek.
The story of Righteous Among the Nations Cornelis and Heintje Roggeveen and Klaas and Boukje Feringa
Cornelis and Heintje Roggeveen
The Feringa family
Max Noach at 19 years of age
Mr. Cornelis Roggeveen, a tall handsome man with a commanding a voice and a commanding presence, was known to all as Kees. Born on May 16, 1908 in Schagen, Kees studied sailing and eventually became a 4th mate in the merchant navy.
Heintje was born on March 2, 1911 in Rotterdam. By the age of 10, both of Heintje’s parents had died, and Heintje and her brother Eel went to live in an orphanage. Heintje completed elementary and secondary school and then studied to be a teacher.
By 1939, Kees and Heintje met, fell deeply in love and were married. At Heintje’s insistence, Kees gave up sailing and went back to school to study land surveying.
As the foreman in charge of a land surveying project in the village of De Rijp, Kees met Mr. Max Noach, a 19 year land surveyor under his charge. Kees had rented a house in the adjacent village in Graft where he lived with Heintje and their son Joost, then less than a year old.
In the fall of that year, the first anti Jewish measures began. The Germans ordered all Jewish employees in the government be registered. Soon afterwards, all Jewish government employees were dismissed, including Max Noach. The situation quickly worsened and Jews were ordered to wear the yellow star.
That same summer, Max received a letter from Kees Roggeveen, which said the following: “If you should ever run into difficulties, please come to me for help.” That fateful day indeed did come, as the mass deportation of Holland’s Jews began. When Max sought out Kees’ help, Max received a short note which he never forgot: “My offer still stands.”
With the infamous “J” stamped on all Jewish identity cards, Max needed a false identification card. Fritz Kool, a gentile who was a good friend of Max’s, gave Max his identity card at great risk to himself; every policeman in Holland had a booklet with the numbers that had been indicated on the “lost” cards, neatly printed in numerical sequence. Max Noach’s number was among them. Max’s new identity card, identifying him as Fritz Kool, was then “processed” with his picture and fingerprints.
With his new name and identification, Max took off his yellow star, and boarded a train for Limburg province to seek refuge in the home of Kees and Heintje Roggeveen. As he departed, Max told his tearful mother, “I will be back in three weeks.” Max was not to see his mother for the next three years.
By that time Kees and Heintje had had a second son, a baby named Sjoerd. Kees and Heintje understood the gravity and extreme risk that they willingly took. The penalty for hiding a Jew in Holland was death for the entire family. The Germans made no exceptions. A family with five children who lived in the same village had simply disappeared overnight when it was discovered that they had hidden a Jew.
In spite of this knowledge, Klaas and Heintje were undeterred; they simply came up with ingenious and elaborate precautions for hiding Max and avoiding his detection. Max was hidden in a room on the second floor in the attic. In cases of more extreme emergencies, Kees devised a hiding place between the chimney and the gable wall in the attic.
Max was even hidden from little Joost. One day, Kees overhead his toddler talking about his “Uncle Fritz” to his playmates. Fearing that the presence of “Uncle Fritz” might become known to some collaborators, Kees decided to stage Max’s farewell to Joost. Max said “goodbye” to the little boy and remained hidden, even as Max and Joost lived in the same house.
In the attic, Max kept himself busy drawing, studying mathematics, or peeling potatoes for the household. The strain of living in those terribly dangerous conditions soon took its toll. Max relates, “Thinking back, I don’t understand how Heintje could take it, having two children and the Germans so strong and absolutely ruthless.”
In spite Max’s best efforts to stay healthy, by the end of 1942, his condition worsened. Max suffered from terrible headaches. The doctors advised that Max get some fresh air. In the spring of 1944, it was decided that Max should move to another place with more healthful conditions. While the prospect was a good one, the difficulty lay in moving Max, a dangerous enterprise with the Germans regularly raiding the trains.
A local policeman by the name of Dussink would became an integral part of Max’s rescue. Having access to official papers, Dussink prepared all the necessary documents to transport his so called “prisoner” from one place to another. He handcuffed Max just before boarding the train to make it look like Max was his prisoner. Kees Roggeveen, pretending to be a complete stranger, travelled with them, carrying a suitcase with Max’s belongings. As Dussink boarded the train with his “prisoner,” everyone on the train stood up to make room for them.
When the train arrived to its destination, the handcuffs were surreptitiously removed and Max continued to walk out of the station, as if he were just another local resident. He was met by Joop Hollebrands, a colleague of Max’s in the Land Surveying Service, who was waiting for him with his tandem bicycle. Kees handed over the suitcase, and he, Joop, and Dussink disappeared.
A houseboat named Pieter, located down the Rhine River in a region called Biesbos was Max’s next home. Max hid with Joop’s brother, Chris Hollebrands, along with two others; Chris, was forced to go into hiding after refusing the German order to round up Jews.
Every once in a while, Max and the others would receive word that the Germans planned to search the boats along the river. This forced Max to search for another hiding place- thus, the home of Klaas and Boukje Feringa who lived in the neighbouring town of Sliedrecht, became his next home.
“Let me tell you about the Feringa family,” says Max. They had seven children, six still in the house. In spite of that, they hid Chris and me in their house, between the ceilings, while the Germans did a house to house search. I heard the Germans ask: “No boys hidden?” while they walked right underneath us.” During the search, the six Feringa children, who did not know that Max was there, roamed around the house. The seventh child, in a prearranged signal, played the organ, alerting Max that the Germans were there.
Despite the severe lack of food, Max stayed with the Feringa family from September 1944 to May of 1945, all the while feeling as if he were a close member of the family. Klaas said, “If seven can eat, then eight can eat as well.”
Food became scarcer and scarcer during this period known as the “Hunger Winter.” Thousands of people died of starvation, especially in the big cities. Driven by their deep Calvinistic convictions, Klaas and Boukje took care of Max in spite of all the difficulties. Max relates: “Mother Boukje Feringa got up first in the morning, prepared breakfast for the children, one thin slice for each, of something that was called bread. She put this breakfast on a plate and brought it upstairs to the bedroom of the five little children. Each child got a slice, and faithfully, each child on a daily basis would be given the “empty” plate to eat off the crumbs. I will never forget those good children.”
Finally, on the evening of Monday, May 7, 1945, word came of the Germans’ surrender. Max told Klaas and Boukje his real name and waited for 8 am the next morning, the hour of official freedom, to leave the house. That morning, Max walked through the streets of Sliedrecht, this time without any fear. The whole place was a sea of Dutch flags and orange decorations. Two days later, Max, with the suitcase that he came with, bicycled home to Voorburg.
Rami Noach, Max Noach's nephew, approached Yad Vashem and asked that Cornelis and Heintje Roggeveen and Klaas and Boukje Feringa be awarded with the Righteous Among the Nations title in recognition of their actions in saving the life of Max Noach.