• Hilde Jacobsthal was born in Berlin on February 16, 1925.
• Her father was in the Ladies Ready to Wear business and it is for business reasons that the family moved to Holland when Hilde was three years old.  They became Dutch citizens.

• In 1933, when Hitler came to power in Germany, more Jews left and moved to Holland. 
• Among these were Otto Frank and his family.  Otto and Hilde’s father became friends as well as founding members of a synagogue called The Liberal Jewish Community of Amsterdam. 
• The friendship became a lifelong friendship continuing beyond the losses of the Holocaust time period.  

• Hilde attended school with plans to become a pediatrician. 
• When the Nazis took over she could not finish her education.  She trained at the Creche ( a child care facility in Amsterdam) and became a nurse. 
• Across the street from the Creche was, what became, the infamous Jewish Theater (Hollandische Schouwburg), the main deportation site in Holland.  The seats of the theater were removed and Jews were crowded into this building to await the deportation transports. 

• The Nazis were irritated by the sounds of babies crying and decided that the babies would be taken from their parents and placed into the Creche till deportation. 
• Hilde cared for these children and became involved in the underground operation to sneak them out to be hidden by people who were willing to take them. 
• Walter Suskind, the Director of Teachers at the Creche was the heroic organizer* of this plan.  Walter Suskind did not survive, but he was able to arrange the escape of close to 1000 Dutch children marked for transport to death camps.

• In accounting for the success of the operation, Hilde noted that the Nazis had some respect for people in uniforms – such as nurses. 
• Hilde was sick with diptheria and not at the Creche when the final deportation occurred.
• By this time her parents had already been deported (first to Theriesenstadt and then to their death in Bergen Belsen) and her brother had escaped to join the underground (resistance) in Belgium. 
• Hilde, made her way to the Maas River and swam across to join her brother in Belgium.

• As a member of the underground she was a courier and helped bring supplies. 
• Her knowledge of languages, (particularly English) made her useful as an interpreter. 
• She was sent to the Ardennes and worked with pilots who had been shot down in the fighting.

• When Belgium was liberated Hilde joined the British Red Cross and her unit was sent to Bergen Belsen. 
• She helped survivors find each other.  However, her training at the Creche was once again very useful.  She started a Baby Keep Well Station and also opened a Child Care Center. 
• Her involvement with children continued as she escorted orphans who were being sent to Israel. 
• In Bergen Belsen she met Dr. Max Goldberg who was responsible for the health conditions of the DP camps there.

• In 1947 Hilde went to Basel, Switzerland and was married to Max.

• In 1948, Hilde and Max were approached by the Haganah which needed doctors and nurses.  She was with the army in the fighting in Northern Galilee. 

• In 1949, Hilde returned to Switzerland and her oldest daughter, Frieda, was born there.  The family moved to the U.S. in 1950 at the urging of Max’s boss at the Joint Distribution Committee. 

• Hilde got a job with the Children’s Aid Society caring for poor mothers and children.  After a while, Hilda’s daughter Rita was born and the family moved to Rhode Island. Dorothy, Hilde and Max’s youngest daughter completed the family.   Eventually, Hilde and family moved to Teaneck, New Jersey where Hilde has lived longer than anyplace else.  Hilde started the Children’s Aid and Adoption Society and ran a child care center.

• *(Film Reference: M & M Films)  Secret Courage, The Walter Suskind Story

Jews of Holland

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/netherlands.html#toward

Anne Frank

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/frank.html

Otto Frank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Frank

Theresienstadt

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?ModuleId=10005424

http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/viewer/wlc/map.php?RefId=THE78060

(from the Yad Vashem site)

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/terezin.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp_Theresienstadt

http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Histories__Narratives__Documen/Theresienstadt/theresienstadt.html

http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Visual___Artistic_Resources/Public_Holocaust_Memorials/Concentration_Camp_-_Terezin/concentration_camp_-_terezin.html

Bergen Belsen
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Belsen.html
http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205985.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen-Belsen_concentration_camp

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005224

DP Camps

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/dptoc.html

http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/month_in_holocaust/december/decenber_lexicon/displaced_persons.html

http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/temporary_exhibitions/childsplay/lexicon/displaced_persons.html

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/ (put DP camps in search box)

http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206273.pdf

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005462

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005129

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005418

Immigration to Israel, pre and post WWII

Illegal immigration (in the article)
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/mandate.html

 Aliyah Bet
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005776
http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/aliyah3.html

Haganah

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/haganah.html

http://www.hagana.co.il/show_item.asp?itemId=54&levelId=60321&itemType=0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haganah

look up Haganah in:

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Centenary+of+Zionism/Lexicon+of+Zionism.htm#H