Berlijn family papers

Johanna Spielmann was born in October 1913 in Doetinchem, the Netherlands. She married Abraham "Bram" Berlijn on March 22, 1942. In September 1942 all Jewish men in the Netherlands were required to go to a labor camp in Ruinen, but Bram Berlijn had an exemption because he worked as a rag-and-bone man. He used his job as a cover to deliver food where it was needed.

In October 1942 the Berlijns were deported to Westerbork, a transit camp, where they removed their Star of David badges and managed to escape. They made their way back to Doetinchem, visited their parents, then left to go into hiding with a sympathetic farmer. They lived in several different locations, including a chicken house in the woods, and eventually Johanna's mother and stepfather joined them. In February 1944 Johanna's stepfather passed away from stress and old age, and the rest all lived in secrecy until April 1945, when German soldiers began to search the farm looking for deserters. Though the Germans asked about the chicken house, they did not search it, and everyone hidden there survived, including a second Jewish family, the Grunenbergs. The area was liberated by the Allies on May 5, 1945.

After liberation, Johanna and Bram Berlijn returned to Doetinchem to find their home bombed and looted. Bram's parents, sister, and brother, along with their families, had been killed by the Nazis. The Berlijns were determined to make a fresh start and secured a new home with some second-hand furniture, where they lived until 1952. Their daughter, Loes, was born in 1947; their son, Nico, was born in 1948. In December 1967 Nico left the Netherlands for Israel and helped start Ein Zivan Kibbutz in the Golan Heights. While there, he met and married his first wife, Laurie Ash, with whom he had two children, Hagar and Raviv. Nico immigrated to the United States in 1990 after marrying his second wife, Susan Addlestone, in Amsterdam. They settled in Charleston, South Carolina, with her two children.