Mirjam Pinkhof

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Mirjam Pinkhof (born December 5, 1916 in Loosdrecht as Mirjam Waterman , † February 16, 2011 ) was a Dutch resistance fighter in World War II .

Life

Mirjam Waterman grew up on her parents' farm in Loosdrecht. Her parents were non-religious Jews and pacifists . After completing school at the Lagere school in Hilversum , she went to the pedagogical college and then became a teacher at the “Werkplaats” (Eng. Workplace), the school of Kees Boeke in Bilthoven , which was shaped by humanist and pacifist ideals .

Before the war, the school took in many German-Jewish refugees who then came under pressure because of the occupation of the Netherlands by the German Reich . Mirjam Waterman became a member of the Zionist movement. There she met Menachem Pinkhof , one of the group leaders of the refugee group, whom she later married. While the Jewish children were banned from normal schools by the Germans, Mirjam and Menachem opened a Jewish school in their parents' home. When deportation threatened, they joined the “ Westerweel Group ” headed by resistance fighter Joop Westerweel , and saved the lives of 320 of 821 Zionist youths. 70 of them were smuggled into what was then Palestine via Spain .

Pinkhof and her husband were forced to constantly go into hiding during their activities. But eventually they were picked up by betrayal. In 1944 Mirjam and Menachem were arrested and deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp via the Westerbork transit camp . Both survived and were freed on April 23, 1945 by Soviet soldiers near the Brandenburg village of Tröbitz from a death transport known as the Lost Train , which was supposed to bring them to Theresienstadt together with 2,500 other exchange Jews . On May 13, 1945, they set off for their homeland on bicycles and, after crossing the Dutch border on June 9, 1945, handed over a memorandum to the Foreign Office in The Hague , informing the Western Allies of their whereabouts learned of this transport. In 1946 they emigrated to Palestine .

Mirjam and Menachem Pinkhof are the parents of Yehuda Afek, a university professor of mathematics and computer science .

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personal data
SURNAME Pinkhof, Mirjam
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Waterman, Mirjam (maiden name); Pinkhof-Waterman, Mirjam
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH December 5, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Loosdrecht
DATE OF DEATH February 16, 2011