Baby Wilhelmina

Samuel and Margaretha Swaap surreptitiously found hiding places for their grandchildren, Wilhelmina (age 2) and Maarten (age 8 months) in August 1942. The children's parents, Louis de Kadt, 29 (born May 13, 1913), and Sonja Rita de Kadt-Swaap, 22 (born October 8, 1919), were murdered in Auschwitz on August 10, 1942. They were rounded up from their home in Amsterdam, forced to gather in the Hollandsche Schouwburg theater, and deported to the transit camp Westerbork, and later to Auschwitz. Wilhelmina lived outside Amsterdam in hiding with a devout Catholic family called van der Zijden, while Maarten was housed by a Protestant couple nearby. Wilhelmina says, "We weren't far apart. I was able to visit my brother occasionally, but I didn't know he was my brother. I thought he was just a friend." Samuel and Margaretha Swaap were deported from Westerbork to Bergen Belsen on May 19, 1944; Samuel died there in February 1945. Margaretha was freed from the camp but hospitalized for two months as she recovered from deprivation-related illnesses. At 52, she immigrated to New York with the children and reunited with her surviving daughter. Margaretha retrieved the family's possessions, including these films.