Born Geertruida Meijer on April 21, 1896, in Alkamaar, Netherlands. She was affectionately known as "Truus" by her family. Her father was, James Meijer, who owned a drug store & Hendrika Boer, who was a self-employed dressmaker. She attended the School of Commerce for 2 years. In 1913, the family moved to Amsterdam. James & Hendrika taught Truus to "stand up for others" & after WW1, they adopted a homeless German boy.
She got her first job at a bank, where she met her future husband, the banker, J.F. Wijsmuller. They married in 1922 & Truus quit her job at the bank. The couple had no children and eventually Truus became involved in social work. Her husband was fully supportive of Truus on all her ventures and in 1932, Truus & her husband hired a live-in assistant, Cietje Hackmann. Truus took on several unpaid positions as a social worker: for example she was a coordinator for a home care association & administrator of a daycare, for the children of working-class parents. She joined the, Vereeniging voor Vrouwenbelangen en Gelijik Staatsburgerschap (Association for Women's Interests & Equal Citizenship). Along with her charity work, Truus was nominated #6 on the roster of Liberal candidates, during the Amsterdam civic elections, in 1935.
Due to the impending threat of war, she started, Korps Vrouwelijke Vrijwilligers (KVV; Corps for Women Volunteers), in 1938 & she soon had a large network of informants and other such people. Starting in 1933, Truus went to Germany to rescue family members of Jewish acquaintances & brought them to the Netherlands. Truus' first rescue attempt was on November 17, when she rescued 6 children from the Dutch consulate, in Hamburg.
After Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), in 1938, Truus caught wind of rumors saying Jewish children were wandering alone, in the woods on the Dutch-German border, so she went to investigate. Upon arriving in the area, she found a Yiddish-speaking Polish boy & she smuggled him out under her skirt & brought him to Amsterdam. In November 1938, the British government decided to let Jewish children, under age of 17 from Nazi countries, enter the UK for a temporary stay. On December 2, Truus received a request to come to the newly founded, Dutch Children's Committee, in Amsterdam. Norman Bentwich was present at the meeting & asked her to go to Vienna, to meet Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was the Nazi officer handling the emigration of Jews and it was thought Truus, as a non-Jewish woman, might be able to get permission from the Nazis to bring the children to England. Eichmann spoke to her brusquely but Truus remained staunchly resolute. In the end, Eichmann allowed her to travel with 600 children. On December 10, she left Vienna with 600 children, aboard a train. The journey from Vienna to Hoek van Holland (Hook of Holland) was about 30 hrs. 100 of the children received shelter in the Netherlands & 500 crossed the channel to England.
Truus had been incensed to see how poorly children were treated, while in Vienna but when she recounted what she had seen to people back in the Netherlands, she was met with total skepticism. From this point on, Truus organized a series of "children transports" called, "Kindertransport", from Nazi Germany & other Nazi occupied territories, to Britain but also the Netherlands, Belgium & France. This of course was a very complex operation, as it required the cooperation of parents, guardians, various committees of volunteers in multiple cities & countries. Truus also maintained in contact with boat & train companies, as she realized it was crucial to complete these transports as quickly as possible. It is believed, Truus, amongst others, saved up to 10,000 children from certain death. Approximately 1800 refugee children remained in the Netherlands.
Truus herself has been credited as saying the success of this operation was mostly due to the assistance of the Jewish communities in Vienna, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, Breslau (now Wroclaw, in Poland) & later, Prague (Czech Republic), Danzig (now in Poland) & Riga (Latvia).
On behalf of the Amsterdam Red Cross, Truus brought food & medicine to the Gurs & St. Cyprien internment camps, in the south of France. But she was let go in 1941, when the Dutch Red Cross terminated her travel permits after she criticized one of the other ARC employees working in Paris. As the war progressed, she became invested in distributing food throughout the Netherlands. She sent packages to camps like Westerbork, Bergen Belsen & Theresienstadt. This would become impossible when food shortages reached a fever pitch in the Netherlands.
Beginning in March 1939, Truus was a member of the board of the Amsterdam orphanage, Burgerweeshuis, which accommodated refugee children. Truus & her husband were very involved with the children, who would spend a night at the Wijsmuller's & they took them on outings to the zoo; the children often referred to her as "Tante Truus" (Aunt Truus). After the 1st large transport of several hundred children, the work became more structured & a maximum of 150 children per transport was agreed upon. Unfortunately, when war broke out between England & Germany in September 1939, these transports of children came to an abrupt halt.
After the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Truus traveled to Bruxelles, Belgium. There she spoke to the Belgian Red Cross & Belgian Children's Committee. She got into contact with Benno M. Nijkerk, a Dutch-Belgian businessman & they agreed to bring as many children as possible south. Nijkerk had fake ID cards forged in Bruxelles & Truus smuggled them with information on the escape route to the Netherlands. She continued this work until at least 1943. During this period, she devoted herself to uniting families including, families who'd escaped from Belgium & France & sometimes even brought children back to their families in Germany. She traveled with her last batch of Jewish children, across the Spanish border, in June 1943.
In May 1942, Truus was arrested & imprisoned in the Amstelveenseweg, in Amsterdam. She was arrested because the Gestapo believed she was helping Jewish refugees escape the Netherlands & flee to France & Switzerland. This stems from a group of Jews, that had been hiding in Nispen & been discovered by the Gestapo. As Truus had been the one to provide them with false ID papers & escape routes, she automatically earned the suspicion of the Gestapo.
In September 1944, Truus heard that 50 children from the Dutch transit-camp, Westerbork, would be deported. At regular intervals she brought food to these children; she was then able to convince German officials that these children were not Jewish, but born of Dutch mothers & German fathers. Thanks to her guile, the children from Westbork were sent to Theresienstadt & returned safely after the war.
After the war, Truus traced missing persons from the camps, as a member of the KVV & UNRRA. Between 1945-66 she was again a member of the Amsterdam city council for the Liberal party. Truus also remained involved in social work & many social projects in the Netherlands & abroad. For example, she was involved in the construction of workplaces for the disabled in Amsterdam & the founding of a hospital in Suriname & the Anne Frank House. Up until her death, she maintained contact with several of the children she had helped save.
Truus Wijsmuller died on August 30, 1978, leaving her body behind for scientific research.
Side notes:
Yiddish- language primarily spoken by Ashkenazi Jews.
Norman Bentwich- British lawyer & law scholar.
Hoek van Holland- a town in the southwest of the Netherlands.
UNRRA- United Nations Relief & Rehabilitation Administration, a precursor of the UN.
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Female Rebels & Activists
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