Last week, to commemorate Yom HaShoah, Miriam Cohen Fulda spoke at the Young Israel of the West Side about her experiences during the Holocaust as a hidden child in Spykenisse, on one of the islands to the south of Rotterdam.

1940: Germany Invades The Netherlands

On May 10, 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands. Days later, the Dutch army surrendered. Although Miriam was only 5 years old at the time, she remembers the Germans marching with their feet high in the air, barking dogs, and blaring music. “The marches and music scared me stiff,” she recalled.

It was not long before the Germans placed severe restrictions on the Jewish people, such as forcing them to wear the Yellow Star of David with the word “Jood” (“Jew” in Dutch), restricting the ability of Jews to travel, and not allowing Jews to leave their homes after 8 p.m.

“But life carried on and we went to school,” Miriam said. “I was in the Montessori kindergarten, and every Shabbos we walked to the big shul in the east of Amsterdam.”

When the Germans began the roundups and deportation of Jews, Miriam’s parents began to devise a plan for their family to go into hiding.

Miriam’s aunt and uncle, the Van Essens, lived in the middle of Holland in a small kehilla called Veenendaal. They had a wholesale food business that supplied the east of Holland, and one of the salesman, Toon Van Dam, offered to hide the Van Essens and their Kindertransport war guest from Germany, Leo Katz, as well as Miriam, her parents, and all of her siblings (Saul, Leah and her baby brother Mordechai) in his home in Veenendaal.

Van Dam also offered to hide Miriam’s grandmother Rebbetzin Cohen as well as her son and daughter, but they refused to go into hiding and perished at Sobibor.

When Miriam’s parents told her that she was going into hiding, she thought to herself, “What will happen to my footstool in shul’”? explained Miriam, “This footstool I got on my last birthday so I could reach the mechitza and peep downstairs.”

May 1943: Going Into Hiding

In May 1943, Van Dam took Miriam, Saul and Leah to the train station. Their train was cancelled, however, as a large group of Jews on the platform next to them were being taken by train to Westerbork.

The following day, Miriam Saul, and Leah made their way to the Van Dam home, and their parents and Mordechai joined them the day after that.

Only a few days after they arrived, Leah, who was 6 years old, looked out of a window and saw two girls playing outside. One girl called the other an “idioot,” which to young Leah sounded similar to “Jood.” Leah promptly yelled out of the window, “I’m a Jood.” It was quickly decided that all the children had to be moved to other hiding places.

Miriam’s uncle had connections to the owners of a large cigar factory in Veenendaal, who secretly worked for the resistance and helped find places for all of Miriam’s siblings to hide, albeit separately, throughout Holland.

Miriam was taken in by a Protestant family in Spykenisse. This family became, as Miriam affectionately refers to them, her “foster family.” Her foster parents, Arie and Teuntje Van der Sluys, saw it as “their duty as Protestants to take me in because they knew what would happen to me if they didn’t.”

The Van der Sluys and their five children—they had a sixth child after the war—were extremely kind to Miriam, and welcomed her into their home. She was told that her name from then on was Mariettje Barendse. Arie told his children that Mariettje came to live with them because her house in Rotterdam was bombed.

At one point, neighbors started asking questions such as “Why don’t Mariettje’s parents come to visit her?” The resistance then arranged for a married couple to visit Mariettje, and they brought presents for her and all of the children.

Miriam, now Mariettje, had to assimilate to her foster family’s lifestyle, although she always remembered her Jewish heritage. Every Sunday, she and her new family went to church. One Sunday Mariettje saw a young boy who was baptized, and she recalled being incredibly fearful that he was a Jewish boy.

1945 and the End of the War

At the beginning of 1945, Mariettje and her foster family were forced to move into the village of Spykenisse due to flooding caused by the Germans. A typhus epidemic ensued (because the Germans poisoned the water), and Mariettje and her foster sister Agaat were taken to the hospital in Rotterdam by horse and cart. After six weeks, they were taken to military barracks in Rotterdam.

When the war ended, a nurse told Mariettje that she would be called Miriam again. The girl promptly started crying and said, “That’s very dangerous.”

Miriam’s father ultimately found her, but at first she didn’t recognize him. Shortly thereafter, Miriam was reunited with both of her parents and all of her siblings.

The family moved back to Amsterdam. “We picked ourselves up and started to rebuild our lives,” stated Miriam.

Miriam’s Continued Relationship With Her Foster Family

Miriam kept in contact with her foster family. She went to her foster sister’s wedding in 1960, and her foster parents came to her wedding in Amsterdam in 1964.

In 1975, on the initiative of Miriam’s parents, her foster parents were honored by Yad Vashem.

In 1987, on a Dutch television show called “The Surprise Show,” Miriam and her husband, Leo, z”l, surprised Arie on stage, a reunion which was arranged by her oldest foster sister, Adrie. At that time, Arie took the benscher from Miriam’s wedding out of his pocket and told her that “he always carries it with him.”

In 2015, Miriam and her daughter Zehava went to visit Miriam’s foster siblings in Spykenisse. On that trip, they also paid their respects to Miriam’s foster parents, Arie and Teuntje at their gravesites. On Arie’s tombstone, it is written in Dutch that he who has saved one life has saved the entire world.

Judith Falk is the creator of the Upper West Side Shtetl Facebook Group. You can follow her on instagram @nyc.shtetl. She is a lawyer by day and a former legal reporter.