Israel honors a righteous Gentile
The son of a Dutch couple who saved a Jewish child’s life during the Nazi occupation will receive a Righteous Among Nations award on their behalf at the Yom Hashoah commemoration in Sydney tonight.
Hermine and Frederick Korten with their son Hans in December, 1946
Marianna Katwijk was nine years old in 1942 when her family was notified that they were to be transported from Amsterdam to the Westerbork camp ahead of being moved to a concentration camp in the east of the Third Reich.
Marianna’s uncle was married to a Christian woman and he organised for the nine-year-old to be taken to a family in the Hague as a temporary measure.
The child was then handed into the care of Frederick and Hermine Korten in Leiden who brought her up as with their son Hans pretending that she was a relative.
Even though they did not have the appropriate paperwork, the Kortens convinced the local school to accept Marianna.
Marianna’s mother died in the concentration camp but her father survived and was reunited with his daughter at the end of the war.
The Kortens emigrated to Australia with their son Hans.
Tonight Hans will receive the Righteous Among the Nations award from Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Shmuel Ben-Shmuel.
Stories like this one keep coming up in some cases decades after the events. It restores a little bit of humanity in this world of chaos.