Hester Kool Full Holocaust Survivor Testimony

for about five seconds on that sign so people know which teeth this is and three two one you can put it down now and just maybe say your name and start your story okay well my name is Hester and I was born in Amsterdam in Holland and I met my parents I had a brother who was three years older than me and we lived for about three years I was three years old and my brother had asthma and the doctor had said to my parents you the city air is not good for you he was always sick we have to move to the coast so we moved to some fort can I wait one minute oh I just like okay so we moved some amps for them but it's over here we moved to a small town right over here in some for it and at those years it was a big trip right now it may be by car is maybe three-quarters of an hour and this is the map of Holland that I have outlined here Germany is over here Belgium is over here and England this is the North Sea and England is over there so we had to move to some foot and my father had to leave his job and because of the was not that much transportation and we didn't have cars at those years so I don't exactly know what he really did because some foot is really a beach town there was really in the wintertime there is not much work or so so but I think he worked something better school the path and then he did ordinance jobs so anyway so we lived there till about 1940 that is when Hitler invaded Holland matter of fact that was May 10th was right after my birthday my birthday is the beginning of May and so hit live invaded Holland and well how long this is really a small country and we didn't in World War one Holland was always neutral and stayed out of the war but this time Holland Hitler invaded Holland and how long really fought for about five days they didn't have any bombs or anything like that but they opened up the dikes in Holland because Holland is below sea level and they opened up the dikes and flooded all the pole the land they figured oh those soldiers could never get into Holland but all that water and so they were fighting for more than four days in the fifth day but Hitler did is they bombed Rotterdam now Rotterdam is right here this is Rotterdam here Rotterdam is a big a big Harbor comes from all over the world the boats come in well he bombed Rotterdam and almost flattened treat waters of Rotterdam well by that time the Queen and her cabinet said they had to surrender I mean they couldn't find the Germans and so they surrendered after five days the Queen and her family they fled to England and from England they when to Canada and they swear they stayed but I mean while we are stuck with with the Germans with the soldiers so but nothing really changed very much now we lived right on the beach you have the dunes and then you have the beach beautiful beautiful beach well the first thing what they did is the the soldiers closed of all the beaches so he couldn't go to the beach anymore and they put in mines in the water because they figure that if from England if the ships come to help Holland they would hit the mine and they were blown up but I have seen so and then in the dunes they made bunkers from cement and this where the soldiers were sitting with the cannons in case a ship did come by so anyway so that's about all the changes in the beginning I still could go to school now I was 13 years old and this is a picture of me when I was 13 years old it's not a very good picture anyway the only thing is they they invaded may May 10th the Germans invaded Holland a a couple of months later there somebody blew up the synagogue and we always started watch the Germans that blew up the synagogue but it was not the Germans that day that it was the Dutch fascists the Dutch who collaborated with the Germans and now they figured out Hitler is in charge and we can do anything for the Jews you know so they blew up the synagogue so it took me quite a few years before I I know that we had to leave some food and all the Jewish people had to leave some foot and move to Amsterdam so but you know I was only a kid I was 30 years old and it didn't really I was a kid and I didn't really thought in my mind of to remember all these things so I only know we had to move to Amsterdam and we couldn't we only could take our clothes with us we couldn't take any anything with us because we didn't know how long we have to live in Amsterdam and I had we had a little backyard and one day I saw my mother hide something she opened up some of the they were like flag stones in the back and she hid something there but I didn't really pay too much attention to it so we had to move to Amsterdam so my father had 10 brothers and one sister and all of them almost all of them lived in Amsterdam only one brother lived in Antwerp Belgium so and the one sister she had room to put us up she had an apartment her husband was a German Jew but by the time we came to Amsterdam he wasn't there anymore he was already had to go to a work camp at though she is we only moved work times we didn't know about concentration camps and she had a baby she just had a baby maybe about a half a year old who was she was a child and never cried or anything so we moved in with my aunt and so meanwhile I couldn't go to school there and my brother who was three years older couldn't but I found a job right away in Amsterdam and I worked for well it was a factory that was sewing and they I would learn how to sew but it was run by the Germans anyway so I learned how to sew what my my parents didn't work there and my brother didn't work and I have no idea of where we even got the money to get food or anything but what you have to do is when we moved there we had to go to it's like a Jewish Federation and you had to give up your name and your address where you were living so they will know you know you have to go and tell them that not thinking that later on the Germans had all those names because the Jewish Federation had everybody's name and where they lived so anyway so we lived in Amsterdam and see I have to just go back a little bit I don't know how many years ago I went back to Holland because I never could remember exactly of when we had to leave the town of some foot I thought always that the Germans invaded Holland and they came into his own foot and all the Jews had to leave right away but that was not true I had gone to a years ago when my husband and I went back to Holland I went to the town where I used to live and I went to the town hall and because it was always bothering me that I could not remember exactly when we had to get out of the town so I went to the town hall and I saw this man sitting by the desk I figure maybe there was some newspapers that would say when all the Jews had to leave so I told him but I was looking for so he says to me well what is your name what is your father's name so I told him so he goes in the back he goes in the back and he comes out with this piece of paper and on this paper it is exactly of where I used to live and when we had to leave and we didn't have to leave till May of 1942 so that meant that I still had lived in Sanford for two years and I just could not remember that so I still went to school and now we have to move now we are in in Amsterdam and so this is 1942 that is men the Germans really started getting the Jews out of Holland and we first of all we had to wear a Jewish star and that was like a yellow star and they must have given us about maybe three of them and we had to show that on our jackets every I mean you go out and you needed about three because sometimes you change your clothes so and we could not pin it it had to be sewn because if you pin it then you could easily take it off so anyway so well we were good citizens and and we did what we were told so anyway so then they started picking people up on the streets anybody that were in yellow sky and first in the beginning they were only men and boys that they picked up they had like and a like and a van or something bigger than it was not really a truck but of us bigger than a van and every once in a while they used to walk around in the street and pick up and pick up the people that had a yellow star put him in the in the van and shipped them to a opera house but was not all that far from where we lived with my aunt it was an opera house mostly Jewish artists and the tainment was there and they used that as a gathering putting everybody there and from there they shipped them to West abort but is a camp in Holland I have to map here again this is Westerbork so from Amsterdam they went by train and they they shipped them to Westerbork sometimes they send them from Amsterdam over here is another camp that is filled and that was a camp not a concentration camp but there's where they put the people before they ship them from the camp to Germany to the to the work camps now we always thought they were work camps because we didn't find out well after the war that they were concentration camps so anyway so it was pretty scary just walking in Amsterdam and what they did then they put this this says Jews are not allowed we couldn't go to any movie theaters we couldn't go and on any public transportation and we couldn't go into any stores unless it was a Jewish person that was that owned the store but otherwise you so they put these things in the window so it got very very dangerous just to walk around and then we had a curfew after eight o'clock you couldn't be out on the streets anymore and then every once in a while you saw a person running now you didn't know why they were running maybe they were running to get at the bus or whatever but because of us so scary walking around that they were picking people up that all of a sudden everybody started to run so because you just wanted to get away so that went on for a while and then by in May by July they started to send people notifications in the mail a letter in the mail that you had to come to the Opera House but that was this Hubbard and you had to go there and and then you were sent to a work camp so one day I came home from work and everybody was very upset what happened my parents and my brother got the notification in the mail that they had to come to the Opera House I didn't get it probably because I was working and it was the Germans who were running that Factory so but I wanted to go with them I didn't wanted to be left behind but my course my parents there's no way you stay back so my mother made backpacks now I only think that we had those backpacks already when we left some foot because I cannot remember that we had any suitcases so but I know those backpacks were big like this and round she made it from some kind of a material and so they put all their clothes in there and they had to be at the Opera House a certain time I don't remember exactly when but that was in June I we moved in May in 1942 in to Amsterdam and I think maybe was even towards the end of May that they had to go so we lived on the fourth floor and so they had to go downstairs with the big backpacks that they could hardly carry and how were they going to carry it to go all the way to the Opera House but it's really not all that far and then you have to carry those big backpacks so just then as we went downstairs and men with a bicycle and he had a little cat in back of his bike and so he says they could put their backpacks in there and he would take them to the Opera House and so that is what they did and of course it was very difficult for us to say goodbye downstairs because they had to leave me behind so of course it was a lot of crying but we did it fast and they left and I watch them going down the street and of course that is last time that I ever saw them so anyway in meanwhile I stayed back with my aunt and I went to work and but I had a girlfriend that had left also in the town where I used to live and she of course had to move to Amsterdam to and I saw her all the time and one day she says to me you know one of these days they will thank you you'll get a letter too and you will have to go to the camp also she's I can get you into hiding now she is also free she was Jewish but her father came from Russia and her mother came from Turkey well Germany was not at war with Russian yet so they got an exempt that they didn't have to go to the camps so so when she says to me she can get me into hiding I figured well I'll do that so I never knew that she worked for the resistance now she was all of 15 because by that time I'm 15 years old and she was pretty pretty smart that she was doing nobody knew that she was working for the decision so she got me a false passport now my name they may have my original passport in the past but it looks something like this see when you open it up this is a passport from my husband's cousin because I don't know what happened to mine and on the passport is a J so when the Germans are soldiers or the police used to stop you on the street and let's say you didn't wear a yellow sky they asked for your identification well the manager gave them this they knew they that you were Jewish and if you didn't wear the star yellow star all right by the way in the wagon so anyway what my from my passport they took off the J and they instead of my name was Hester they made it Helene and my last name was lasse waa s they put in back of that dorp VoIP so now my name is Helene my stirrup so I know I couldn't take anything with me and she told me I have to get on the train and go to the city of Haarlem I need this so I I had to go to the city of Haarlem now this is Amsterdam Harlem is right here that is on the way towards zomp forth where I used to live so I I took up the yellow star so now I am travelling as a Christian anyway I had to go on the train and I had to go to Harlem I was a little nervous that I shouldn't meet anybody that knew me because I'm already going towards the town where I used to live and sure enough I'm on the train and all of a sudden somebody says Hester well you know when you have for 15 years a name and all of us under your name is not Hester anymore I looked up I got so scared I hopped off the train and anyway I took the next train and I went to Harlem and I had to go to this church I had to meet the men at the church well as he was the church organist there who worked also for the resistance anyway so I had to go and see him now the only thing is before I did that before I met him I do remember that I slept in two other places and but I don't remember all that much about it I remember that I had to see him and he looked me over well at those years I had pretty light brown hair so I looked pretty good to him I guess I didn't look Jewish I don't know what the people you say oh you look Jewish well I I don't know I didn't I had brown hair and I had like greenish eyes I didn't very I was not dark anyway so now he asked me to say 88 in Dutch now the people who lived in Amsterdam and the world I would say three-quarters of the people am said were all Jewish and they had a certain dialect you know like the people in the south they have a certain dialect well I guess in voluntee maybe maybe it was a Jewish X and I I have no idea but I guess I sounded pretty good because I really didn't live all that long in Amsterdam I mean we moved there in May and I think I when I saw the men was probably towards the end of the year or maybe like in January of the following year so I guess I sounded pretty good to him so fine he takes me home with him he had his wife and he had three children a little infant and a two and a three year old so they were really little and I was going to live in their house now before I came they have had people staying over maybe for one or two nights before they were going to send to a different hiding place I was the last one who stayed and I stayed there and I was like a maid there I helped with the laundry and taking care of the kids and the cooking I had a room up in the attic and like you kids have known that I you know like the end Frank story so I had a room up in the attic anyway so the first thing now I just want to tell you I think I was spoiled I was very spoiled when I lived at home every time my mother needed any help somehow I always disappeared my brother is the one who used to help her all the time so I really didn't do anything I can't even remember even ever making my bet or anything but now I moved in there he brings me home and there is waiting for me a big tub a big sink tub with water bit dirty diapers and I had to wash those diapers and they never flushed the diapers in the toilet so it was very dramatic for me to have to do that but anyway I did it and I did not eat with the family in the dining room I ate in the kitchen so I was really a nanny and whatever you want to call it a house cleaner whatever you call it and so it was very difficult by that time I mean I'm like not even 16 years old 15 and a half years old and at oshi yes kids were the kids nowadays are much more I think mature already we were really still kids so but I had a room and I cried a lot and and you know because I was really lonesome and I had this little note paper that it's like my diary like I wrote in here how unhappy I was you know that is all I had anyway so it was just scary even every time the bell rang I figured oh somebody told them that they hide in a Jewish girl because I had the whole run of the house but I never meant outside I don't remember years later man I went back to Holland how beautiful it was there but of course I didn't know that I was in the house all the time anyway so I was scared every time the boy doorbell rang if maybe the neighbors said something but see in Holland a lot of families had a young girl living in their house as a nanny or a maid or whatever so and the next so the neighbors never really said anything and once in a while I think right where they lived is a little like a little Plaza with a bunch of little stores and there was a butcher who used to get one set of our bones and used to cook the bones in water and used to give it to the neighbors because the food we didn't have all that much food already because a lot of the food went to Germany so they had rations you know they had I think little stems that they could get maybe a quarter of a pound of butter or something like that but of course they never got anything for me so they had to share their food with me also so the food was pretty scarce we we ate tulip bulbs that you have to take something out because otherwise it is poisonous and then you could eat that and we did have sugar beets and there was no sugar but if you cook the sugar beets you get like a and sicne sickly syrupy sweet stuff that you could put over the cereal so anyway we also heard the the airplanes going over from England coming over to Germany matter of fact because Holland is so small that we could even hear the bombs that was falling in Germany we could even hear that but the planes were so high they were either the Canadians or the English they got so high but the Germans had those searchlights and once an airplane got into one of the searchlight that was the end of the plane so they but we could we could hear them going over and they were pretty pretty high so that lasted till 1945 so I lived with the people for about two and a half years two years something like that so anyway so after the war was over now they didn't pick up garbage anymore in front of the house that was a whole row of houses then you had like a medium strip with grass and then there were houses on the other side well they didn't pick up the garbage anymore so people threw the garbage on that medium strip there and it got pretty high well and then the war is over all of a sudden I'm looking out and they were picking up girls that had gone out with the soldiers with the German soldiers they collaborated with them if they knew of anything they would tell them hey this may be a jewel hiding in here or there well they picked up all those girls and they put them on the top of the big pile and they shaved their heads and then they painted it and then they same thing so I thought at first this is you know a lot of things that I can't remember but certain things you you remember that so anyway so anyway there must have been a lot in the city and Harlem because I lived on the outskirts of Harlem they had a lot of celebration of course I didn't go there because I didn't see anything I didn't leave them so one day I wanted to go to Amsterdam to see maybe that my parents came back from from the from the war you want to wait one second okay okay I so I had they had a bicycle with a rubber bit of it rubber tires not with air in them they was just solid and I went to Amsterdam on the bike but it's quite a ride on the bond on the bicycle and I went to Amsterdam to see if any of my family had come back and I found this girl that I knew she was a girlfriend of mine and she was Jewish but she was half her mother was not Jewish her father was so she never had to go away so she so I bumped into her and she says to me I met one of your father's brothers that is the one who lived in Belgium he came after the war looking if he could find anything any family and what happened to him my uncle and his wife but the two daughters they had fled and where Belgium when Hitler invaded Belgium and they fled to southern France to Spain and from Spain they went to the Netherlands Dutch Indies well after the war they wanted to go back to Antwerp well also my mother's father lived in Antwerp also with his second wife and they also fled to the Netherlands West Indies the only thing is he went to America my uncle went back to to Antwerp Belgium so he's looking so somehow I got I don't know how I got his address or whatever but we got together and he told me that my grandfather lives in America so so somehow I kind of touch with my grandfather but I have to go back a little bit when I even back after I saw in Amsterdam I went back of course to the suburb of Holland where I had been in hiding and I I wanted to go I told I wanted to go to America to my grandfather well the Missal Jewish organization like the Jewish Federation that was in Amsterdam too and they were my they became my Guardians because I had no parents so anyway one of my father's brothers also in Amsterdam had been in hiding and he and his wife survived and moved back to Amsterdam so my I got in touch with my grandfather and also my mother's brother who lived with my grandfather they all moved to America they wanted me to come to America and I was so unhappy anyway I wanted to get away so but the men where I was hiding in his house he wouldn't let me go he wouldn't sign the papers or anything like that and and I really I really wanted to go so one day I went over his desk I guess and I took the papers well he was not home I guess I took the papers and I left and I never meant back now I I told the kids in school maybe I was not such a nice girl who did this but I did what I had to do and so I I left and I moved in with my aunt and uncle in Amsterdam and they had also a daughter my cousin is a little bit younger than me who was picked up and went to Tracy instead well she survived servation stud but it's a concentration camp so I left with them and got all the papers ready and everything to go to America so my daughter who lives here in Seattle once heard me talking in a who told them that I didn't think I was such a nice girl to have done that and she says Matt don't ever say that I mean you did what you had to do and I mean it was not like I had somebody that could tell me well you're doing right or you're doing wrong I did it whatever whatever I did so I never I never kept in touch with the people again till many years later when my son who wrote this book here somehow to the email and the internet found the people who lived in the house Maris in hiding is not the same people anyway he got very friendly and they know of the girl the oldest girl that I that I was taken care of of course when I left she was only six years old but somehow he got in touch with her and she wanted to know what kind of a child she was and everything so anyway so I Eman and I came to America and the only thing that's what I want to say is also my girlfriend who helped me go into hiding she had told my aunt that if they ever come for you see what they did is do it by the time it is 1942 in July they at night they came and they blocked off each part of the street because they had a list of where everybody was living and they took everybody out at night they just begged open the door they went through a whole apartment because I had lived with my aunt on the fourth floor they went to the first floor the second floor and they took everybody out so my girlfriend had told like out if they ever come for you at night and if you have time put the baby up in the Eric the baby never cried and I think there was a double wall there and sure enough one night they came for all the people in that house and she had time to put the baby up there the next day my girlfriend found out that that they had taken everybody in that street so she after the next day she went up in the house in the attic and there's the baby so that baby is now some sixty what what years old she put her at a farm and the son part of Holland and there's where she was hiding and they really loved the baby they didn't even know she was but after the war two of my uncle's survived and they said that baby has to have a Jewish upbringing or something they should have left her with the people at the farm but anyway she lives in a home now for very tired people anyway so anyway so I came so now I have a couple of things that I told you I could net we couldn't take anything with us somehow I have this poetry album that I have no idea how it is in my possession but is that I got this in 1939 and I think I got this maybe for Hanukkah because I started writing and here in January in 1939 so I was 12 years old and this is a booklet about all your friends write a little poem in here about like roses are red I love you something like that well my father wrote in here and somehow he wrote a poem that he wrote himself that after many years I should look in this book and always think of what your parents have done for you to go to life of course they you know they never did it and then and then I have here that my mother wrote a poem because I think my father helped to write this and then I have here one page that my brother wrote in here so to me how it came in my position possession I have no idea but I got it and then I also have I gotta be port cut here that I went to Hebrew school a religious school my father signed this in 1940 so I still went to religious school now in some foot where I used to live there really was not a religious school we had a synagogue but in the public school where I went one of the rooms after school the rabbi came and teach thought as Hebrew why I have this I have no idea why would why would anybody save a report card so those are two things that I have no idea of how I got it I mean I have no idea who could have saved this for me but I I do have it so after quite some years ago I I got married I came to New York and I met my husband in Boston and we went to we went to Holland and I found this book it is all about the town where I used to live and in the back all the dates of all the people do all the Jewish people that used to live there and where they got killed and in here because see I never knew I didn't have any death certificates or anything from my parents see I lived in Holland before I came to America two years in Holland I came to America in 1947 and the war was over in 1945 and I was always hoping that well maybe someday my parents will stop still be coming back that they survived the camps because he after the wars when we found out that they were were camps so the concentration camps right so well in here are my parents name my mother they left we moved to Amsterdam in May of 1942 they got killed already in September of 1940 - my father and my brother my father got killed already in August and my brother the same day as my mother so I think when they arrived in the camp because that is from May to August is only a few months so they got killed right away so this book is was really because now I know the dates exactly they they got killed in Auschwitz I have exactly the date here and also I have here say somebody wrote this book who used to live in the town where I used to live and he got all got that information from the Red Cross because say the Germans kept very good records that is how they all have all the dates and everything and then here it says a letter that my father's name is on here that because he was Jewish they he could not work for the for the school board or whatever he did so that he was dismissed of that so this was so this book if gave a lot of light to me so then I got later on I got my parents and my brother's death certificates because they never came back so we had a very very big family my mother had two brothers two sisters and a brother and they each had like two and three children so they got killed the only thing the brother who lived in Antwerp Belgium survived of course so I have a cousin they have bandura so I have Mont cousin there and then three brothers of the of the ten brothers and the sister survived so I still have two cousins who live in Antwerp I have one cousin lives in Spain and I have two cousins that live in Amsterdam so I guess I'm lucky to have some family because most people didn't have anybody left and so I keep in touch with my cousins now did I forget oh yes okay yes okay about the girlfriend that I met oh yes I I told you before that I had seen my mother bury something so after the war Ivan back to some forth and I went to the house where we used to live and they let me in and I went to the backyard and I dug up because I remember that I saw my mother digging something up and there was a menorah a candelabra copper cannula and a silver tea set so when I went back to Amsterdam where I lived with my aunt and uncle before I came to America I put it there but when I moved to America I guess I was kind of shy maybe I don't know and I never took it with me and maybe felt it should stay there now I can kick myself that I never took it with me because that's the only thing that I would have had the only thing is what I had from my parents I'm wearing this necklace and on that necklace is a little charm and as a little Dutch girl on it and I got that for my parents when I think I was either 12 or 13 years old and because I haven't because that was hanging on my neck so that's the only thing that I have from my parents well any one time so I never all those years I never met anybody that knew me as a child so so I don't know how many years ago maybe five years ago my husband and I went back to Holland and because I want to show where I used to live and everything so we meant with this friend of my son who got in touch with the intern and the Internet and we knocked on the door and this old man opened the door and but his wife had just died so we really didn't want to talk to him but there's a woman standing next door to in the next house and my friend says you know this lady used to live here you know well she couldn't remember she doesn't you know she probably was younger and didn't live there but her last name was drama I said she I went to school with her Jenny drama oh she says that is my aunt she says she lives just down the street so anyway so we walked all the way down to the end of the street and I we knocked on the door and this woman opens the door and she says Hester she now I haven't looked since I was 30 years old that is like 55 years ago so that was really for me very exciting you know yeah and then she told me there was another boy that survived and I went to see him because we were neighbors so I met two people that knew me when I was like 30 years old yeah so that was very that was very emotional for me yeah is there anything else that I forgot that I should say so oh I want to say one more thing I forgot that so my son who lives in Victoria I never really talked about when my kids were young and they know that I come from Holland and you know but I really never talked about anything like that but they always had such a feeling there was something there so in nineteen and was 1995 my son decided he better gets everything on the computer he wants to so anyway and I have this booklet that you can hardly read what I wrote in here because of us in a pencil and it isn't Dutch yet so well he wants me to come to Victoria and my daughter who lives here the two of us went to Victoria and we went into an Hotel there's where we were staying and he came with his laptop and he wants to write because he is writing this booklet anyway so we're sitting and so now I had to translate what was in there and I started to cry why was I crying I felt so sorry for the girl who wrote this yet the girl it was me so anyway so my son did a lot of he got doshas from holland and some pictures that I got for my cousin and so so now my kids all know about what happened to me and of my family and I think that is about all that I can think of yes right

Channel: Holocaust Center for Humanity

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Id: Wtt8fidShbo

Length: 57min 7sec (3427 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 23 2018