Edebeth Lopez Cardozo, a Jewish girl in hiding, prepares to throw a snowball.
Overview
- Caption
- Edebeth Lopez Cardozo, a Jewish girl in hiding, prepares to throw a snowball.
- Date
-
Circa 1942 - 1945
- Locale
- Wognum, [North Holland] The Netherlands
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Lea Berkhout
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Lea Berkhout
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Johannes Jacobus and Catherine Johanna Berkhout grew up in The Netherlands. Johannes was trained as a welder but due to the depression was unable to find work. Instead, he opened a small grocery store and café named "The Steamboat" in Wognum attached to their house. Catherine tended the store and took care of her four boys. John took orders and delivered the groceries to the local farmers with a horse and buggy. After the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, he joined the Dutch Underground, and his store and home became a center for news, rationed foods, meeting places, and also a passageway for Jews. For over 18 months two Jewish families hid in the Berkhout's home while customers and German soldiers frequently stopped by to shop and drink coffee. The two families and the others were transported out of Holland to neutral countries by the Dutch underground. The local Dutch Nazis kept a watchful eye on his activities and looked into the windows at night. John also found temporary hiding places among the local farms for over 50 Jewish people. In 1942 a 5 year old Jewish girl named Edebeth Lopez Cardozo came to stay with the family. She remained with them for two and half years attending school with the boys and church on Sunday with the family. In 1944 the Dutch underground appointed John Berkhout to direct nightly British parachute drops on the Zomerdijk of weapons, ammunition, and food. It then distributed the food to as many Dutch people that the underground could reach and transported the weapons and ammunition in false bottoms of boats to locations where Canadians and Americans troops would retrieve them. In 1945 John went into hiding (with the Nipshagen family) as the search for his arrest intensified, but he still continued to organize the drops every night. Johannes is credited with moving 65 tons of supplies during the war while Catherine cared for the children, café and store all alone. After the war, the Berkhout family immigrated to Canada with their 6 children on August 10, 1952. John found work as a welder and eventually became chief welder. After Johannes's death in 1980 he was awarded the resistance commemoration cross. In 1990 Yad Vashem honored Johannes and Catherine Berkhout as Righteous Among the Nations.
- Record last modified:
- 2008-04-23 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1164621
