Hollebrands, Johan Isak "Joop"

Date of birth:: February 29th, 1908 ('s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands)
Date of death:: August 14th, 1978 (Soest, Netherlands)
Nationality:: Dutch

Biography

Johan Isak "Joop" Hollebrands was a surveyor in the Biesbosch and living in Sliedrecht. He soon became involved in the resistance by hiding people in small arks hidden in the Biesbosch. In the summer of 1942, Joop Hollebrands and his wife Riek took in two Jewish children. They were Bertje and Marleentje Sanders from Haarlem. The children had a good life with the Hollebrands family, but on 27 August 1943 things went wrong. Their parents were arrested and, after being severely beaten by notorious Jew hunter Engelbert Kobus, father Sanders revealed the addresses where the children were hiding. Kobus himself goes to Sliedrecht and takes the children with him. Joop Hollebrands did not leave it at that. He travels to Amsterdam several times to try in various ways to get the family out of the Hollandse Schouwburg, where they are locked up awaiting deportation. His attempts fail. The family still managed to get out of the Schouwburg but was rounded up again immediately afterwards. Hollebrands -like his brother Chris, who later died- remained very active in the resistance. After the liberation of the south of the Netherlands, he made an unknown number of crossings as a Line Crosser to bring people to liberated territory. He received an American and a British decoration for his work and posthumously after attempts by journalist Dick Verkijk in 2010 also the Yad Vashem decoration for helping Jews.

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