Handbell

Object | Accession Number: 1991.226.105

Date: 1945 March 11
Language: Dutch
Classification: Personal Equipment and Supplies
Category: Musical instruments
Object Type: Handbells (lcsh)
Credit Line: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Amichai Heppner

Physical Description: Handbell, made from scraps by Max Heppner for Irene Heppner, used to summon help from sickbed. Star of David and words "Voor Maman" are inscribed on handbell. dated March 11, 1945. In Dutch.
Dimensions: overall: | Diameter: 5.510 inches (13.995 cm)
Materials: overall : metal, paint
Inscription: Star of David and words "Voor Maman"
Contributor: Artisan: Max Amichai Heppner
Biography: Max Amichai Heppner was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1933, to Albert and Irene Kramer Heppner. His parents fled Berlin, Germany, earlier that year after the January assumption of power by Adolf Hitler. His father Albert, born in 1900, was an art dealer and art historian. In May 1940, Nazi Germany occupied the Netherlands. In 1942, after house raids and the confiscation of his father's art business, Amichai's family fled to the Dutch countryside. They decided to leave for France with friends Heinz and Elli Graumann and their son Michael. An attempt to reach the unoccupied zone in France failed when the they learned that the people they were paying 5000 guilders to smuggle them into France intended to murder them. They went into hiding, but had to keep moving from place to place. The Dutch underground later placed the Heppner family and another Jewish family on a Dutch farm owned by Harry and Dina Janssen in Zeilberg-Deurne. The farmer, a Gentile, built special hiding places for them and gave them a radio. They lived mostly in chicken houses until liberation in September 1944. Max's father Albert, 45, died of liver failure in summer 1945, soon after liberation. Max and his mother Irene emigrated to the United States on November 4, 1946. They arrived in Hoboken, N.J., and then stayed with family in Ohio, evnetually settling in Cleveland. Max was later drafted into the United States Army. Irene, age 89, died in 1997.
Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: The bell was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1991 by Amichai Heppner.
Conditions on Access: No restrictions on access
Conditions on Use: No restrictions on use
: Record last modified: 2020-06-30 09:22:19
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn5075

Also in Max Amichai Heppner collection

114 documents inside folder: concerns securing, financing and delivering a gift tractor to the Janssen family in Brazil, dated 1960-1961. Includes 96 letters (originals and copies); five notes, one thank you card, one envelope, two translations, seven catalog/advertisements, one purchase order and one phone bill. Accretion: Correspondence primarily of Irene Heppner to family and friends postwar, also included are letters from Max as well. Dates circa 1944-1950s; Cleveland, OH, United Kingdom, Amsterdam; in Dutch and English

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