During the Second World War, several young working women lived together in the building on the Prinsengracht. The manager of the house, who cooked for them and kept an eye on things, was Cor Koster, better known as Aunt Cor. During the war she played an important role in the resistance. She encouraged the girls who lived with her to work as couriers, there were also people in hiding in her garden house and during the hunger winter she set up a food distribution center.
Journalist and historian Rianne Oosterom regularly came across the address of the house on Prinsengracht during her research on women in the resistance in the Second World War. She decided to just ring the doorbell. A few residents – still a house full of working, young women – opened the door. They had never heard of Aunt Cor.
Reading in the bedroom
Today Oosterom will give a lecture from the house where Cor carried out her acts of resistance. “She accomplished a lot behind closed doors. What she did was not grand and compelling, but very effective. Such a food distribution center could really save a lot of people. Just like the telephone line that she facilitated. These are forms of resistance that have remained underexposed,” she says.
To Aunt Cor’s great sadness, she was never recognized for her resistance work after the war. She was fired during the war. She then went into hiding in Drenthe where she continued her resistance work. When she returned to Amsterdam, she was no longer given her beloved job as director of the house on Prinsengracht. That hurt a lot, says Oosterom.
This lecture is part of Open Jewish Houses & Houses of Resistance. On May 3, 4 and 5, thirty-five houses, bars and schools will be opened to tell stories about resistance and the lives of Jewish Amsterdammers.
