Clara (Clary) Vromen was born on September 27, 1931, in Enschede, Netherlands, to Abraham and Minnie van Dam Vromen. Minnie and Abraham married on December 13, 1927, in Enschede. She had an older brother, Jaap (Jacob) Herman, born on July 21, 1930. Her father was a businessman and head of Hachsara, a Zionist youth movement. The family emigrated to Palestine and settled in Tel Aviv. However, her parents divorced on October 27, 1934, and Minnie and the children returned to the Netherlands and settled in The Hague.
Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. The Germans enacted anti-Jewish laws; they had to register as Jews and wear Star of David badges on their clothing at all times; businesses and possessions were confiscated. By summer 1942, there were mass deportations of Jews to concentration and death camp in Poland. In November, two Dutch policemen came to arrest them, but a Jewish Council representative was able to convince the police that Minnie’s work as a social worker was necessary to the community and they were exempted from deportation. Minnie decided that they should go into hiding. She sent the children to her parents and an uncle, who was not Jewish, Piet van der Meulen, made arrangements for their safekeeping. In February 1943, the children’s Star of David badges were removed and they travelled to Deurne where they were hidden in separate homes: Jaap with the vicar and Klara with the parents of the vicar’s housekeeper. Minnie was able to visit them only on their birthdays.
Clara had to leave a home in Linburg in 1941 because she needed an ear operation. The nuns put her in an infectious disease ward to reduce the risk of discovery. But after she sang an anti-German song in the hospital, Julianna Kindersickhus, she had to leave and was taken to Minnie’s cousin, Anneke. She was taken to a home in Amsterdam, but they did not want to keep her as they thought she looked too Jewish. She was sent to home in Utrecht, but there were two other children and the Germans became suspicious. A man came to fetch her and she was welcomed into the home of a Catholic family, Gerard and Riek Hoefs and their two children. They pretended that she was their niece from Zeems Vlanderen and cared for her for the remainder of the war. Clara was raped by her foster father while in their home. One day, two German soldiers rang the bell to ask directions. Clara, on the second floor, became scared and jumped out the window into the neighbor’s garden, injuring her back. There was a hidden cupboard where on another occasion; she hid for several hours as the Germans were searching houses for some other Jews. While the Hoefs never imposed their Catholicism on Clare, she rejected Judaism after the war.
After the war ended in spring 1944, Minnie’s whereabouts were not known. One day, Gerard saw Clara’s name on a register at the nearby synagogue in Bossum, indicating that her mother was searching for her. Mother and daughter were reunited. Although Clara had rejected her Jewishness, Minnie insisted that she attend Jewish summer camp. They returned to Enschede and found strangers living in their apartment and all their belongings gone. Minnie then relocated the family to Amsterdam where Clara had to attend Jewish high school for two years, although she did not graduate. In 1950, Clara left to study nursing in London and, in 1952, immigrated to Israel. Clara married a man named Keren and had two children. She visited the Hoefs every year until they passed away. Gerard and Riek Hoefs were honored in 1977 as Righteous Among Nations and planted a tree with Clara at Yad Vashem.
