Righteous among the Nations. More than 81 years after Jaap Guichelaar from Ruinerwold and the Rijkeboer family from Meppel gave the Jewish brothers Jacques and Eddy van de Rhoer and future wife Helene Seelig a place to hide, they have posthumously received the Yad Vashem award. “They have been essential to the course of the lives of these three people,” says Jacob van de Rhoer, son of Eddy and Helene, who submitted the application.
1944. The Netherlands has already been liberated below the rivers, but above them the Nazis maintain a true reign of terror. Jews have been deported en masse to extermination camps in the East, or are locked up in Camp Westerbork. 28,000 Jews go into hiding, including Jacques, Eddy and Helene. But their lives are never secure. Betrayal lurks.
The brothers and Helene have been in hiding in the Meppel area, where Jacques and Eddy grew up, for over a year. First at hairdresser T. de Jong, where they have to pay money for their accommodation, later at Jaap Guichelaar. Here they are betrayed. In September 1944, Thomas and Gesina Rijkeboer were asked if they could accommodate the three at their farm ‘De Kikkerij’, at Steenwijkerstraatweg 89 in Meppel. This farmhouse is located in a remote location and is therefore a suitable hiding place.
The Rijkeboer family leases the farm from the Van de Rhoer family, whose father Joël is an influential and prominent cattle dealer. “My father Eddy asked if they could go into hiding there,” says son Jacob, who has lived in America for many years. “Rijkeboer was unsure whether they should do that. They were not sure whether they had the right crockery and cutlery to receive such elegant gentlemen. My father then said: ‘Well, if that is your only doubt, we will come tomorrow.'”
The Van de Rhoer brothers and Helene Seelig have already had a nerve-wracking period. Seelig is German with a Dutch mother who lives in Germany. When the Nazis come to power in Germany, she flees to the Netherlands. She goes to work in the Jewish hospital in Amsterdam. During a birthday party she met Eddy van de Rhoer in 1941 and the two became a couple.