Nanny Dekel

MAIL: natali627@gmail.com; noabh40@gmail.com

Survivor: Code: RelatioNetNADE19GOHO

Family Name: Dekel

First Name: Nanny

Father Name: Itzhak

Mother Name: Sara

Sister Name: Simona

Date of birth: 1919

Country ofbirth: Holand

City of Birth: Gauda

Summary of the Survivor's City Before, During and After the war

Gouda

"Few Jews were permitted to settle in Gouda prior to the granting of full civil equality to the Jews of the Netherlands in 1796. Indeed, in 1746 the municipal council of Gouda resolved totally to bar Jews from settling in the town. Despite this, there was a sufficient number of Jews in Gouda at the close of the 18th century to permit the founding of an organized community.

During the early years of the community, the Jews of Gouda gathered to pray in a private residence on the Lange Groenendaal. In 1798, the community purchased a former Anabaptist church building on the Turfmarkt and refurnished it as a synagogue. The building eventually fell into disrepair and was replaced with a new structure built on the same site in 1827.

In 1815, the Gouda community received permission to establish a cemetery of its own on the Boelekade, near the present-day Kleiwegplein. Prior to then, the Jews of Gouda had buried their dead in the Jewish cemetery at Rotterdam. The cemetery on the Boelekade was expanded in 1846 and once again in 1856. In 1930, the Gouda community opened a new cemetery located on the Bloemendaalse Verlaat in the direction of Waddinxveen.

The Gouda community was governed by a community directorate and council, the second of which also served as council for distributing aid to the poor. Jewish voluntary organizations in Gouda included a burial society, a fellowship for the study of the Talmud, and a women's organization. The Gouda community also maintained a poorhouse, a home for the elderly, and a Jewish school. During the nineteenth century, most Jews in Gouda worked as street vendors, as traders in hides, and in rope-making factories.

In 1910, Jacobus Kann, a banker and Zionist leader in The Hague, established the Joodsche Tuinbouw-, Veeteelt- en Zuivelbereidingsvereeniging (Jewish Horticultural, Cattle, and Dairy Association) at Gouda for the training of pioneers for Palestine. In its early days, the number of students at the association's farm, the Catharinahoeve, was small. The association was revitalized during the 1930's and went on to train many Jewish emigrants to Palestine, both before and in the years immediately following World War II.

The rolls of the Jewish community at Gouda were augmented in 1935 when the community at Woerden was merged into its ranks. The Jewish population of Gouda also increased during the first year of the German occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War. In 1940, a number of the many foreign Jewish refugees who had taken up residence in the Netherlands arrived in Gouda following the mass expulsion by the Germans of foreign Jews from cities and towns in the coastal regions of the Netherlands.

A separate school for Jewish children was established at Gouda following the Germans' wartime barring of Jewish pupils from the town's public schools. The school remained open until April of 1943 and the completion of the deportation of Jews from Gouda.

Deportations of Jews from Gouda commenced late in August of 1942. Local members of the Dutch collaborationist party NSB joined the Germans in implementing the deportations. Almost all the Jews living in Gouda, including the residents of the Jewish old age home, were deported and later murdered. The interior of the synagogue was vandalized and destroyed during the war; the synagogue's Torah scrolls were hidden and later recovered, as were a number of its ceremonial objects.

Jewish life in Gouda did not resume following the end of the war. The farm school at Catharinahoeve was sold a few years after the war, as were the synagogue and Jewish home for the aged. The Jewish community at Gouda was formally abolished in 1964 and subsequently was administratively merged into the Jewish community at Rotterdam.

In 1976, rising groundwater levels in the region led to the clearing of Gouda's Jewish cemeteries and the removal of the remains of the dead to the Jewish cemetery at Wageningen. The entrance gate of the former cemetery at the Boelekade and a portion of its walls have been included in memorial monument that stands at the Raoul Wallenbergplantsoen. A plaque identifies the monument as dedicated to the memory of the Jews of Gouda murdered during the war.

A plaque mounted on the façade of the a youth work center at the corner of the Boelekade and the Jan van der Heijdenstraat in 2001 marks the site of the former cemetery Jewish cemetery at the Boelekade.

Also in 2001, a Jewish religious service - the first to be held in Gouda since 1943 - was conducted in the building on the Turfmarkt that had once served the Gouda community as its synagogue.

Oudewater

Jewish life at nearby Oudewater fell under the jurisdiction of the Jewish community at Woerden beginning in 1821. The Oudewater community achieved independent status in approximately 1835 but was merged into the community at Gouda in 1877. The synagogue at Oudewater dated to 1910 and remained in use only briefly. During its existence, the Oudewater community maintained a women's' society for the upkeep of the interior and accoutrements of its synagogue.

Moordrecht

A monument erected at Moordrecht near Oudewater in 1999 is dedicated to the memory of four Jews who had gone into hiding in the village during the war but who eventually 
were apprehended, deported, and murdered."

Survivor's Life Story Before During and After the War.

Nanny was born in 1919 in Gouda, Holland.  She lived there with her father Itzak, mother Sara and sister Simona.  Her father had a big business with his 2 brothers.  They sold cow and rabbit skins.  When Hitler came to power in 1933, they understood that it was a bad thing even though the war in Holland started in 1940.  Holland was under his control 10 days after they conquered it. They passed anti-Jewish laws.  Each time a new law was passed.  Jews couldn't use their bicycles or even go to school or work. She had already started working but she couldn't work after that.  She got a letter firing her from the city.  The Germans took all the money and businesses away from the Jews.  My family talked about what to do they  didn't want to follow Germany orders telling them to gather in  places to  be sent  to work in the East. They understood that the situation was dangerous even though they didn't know exactly what was happening there. They preferred to die at home rather than have the Germans take them away to die.

"The problem was finding a place to hide that was not dangerous because no one could know they were there.  They took Jews' houses so my parents went to live at my father's brother house. My sister and I went to live at my father's sister's house for a short time. One day we went to the synagogue and when we wanted to leave the German police came in and took the Hopper family who never came back.  Then we understood that we should leave. My father had a lot of sisters and brothers in Gouda, but they were from well known families so hiding with them wasn't a good solution . My father had a friend that wasn't living in Gouda. He told my father that my sister and I could come to stay there because he knew a place where we could hide. He was a Protestant Minister who came from a very small town.  I didn't want to go there but my sister wanted to because she knew my father's friend's son because they were in the same class.  My parents were disappointed that I didn't want to go there.  I thought the town was so small that everybody knew what was going on in each other's houses. After the war we realized that it was true.  My sister went to the Minister and I looked for another place to hide.  My friend's friend said that if I needed to I could come stay with them.  She was Christian and didn't live in Gouda but they had a big house so I could come there. I went there to see what kind of people they were and I saw it was a good solution to live there.  We didn't know that the war would last so long.  We thought the war would only last a couple of months and hiding in someone's house wouldn't be a problem."

It was believed the Germans wouldn't take her parents because they were old but Nanny knew that wasn't the true.  There was a sanatorium next to the place where Nanny went  .  A lot of Jews went to hospitals like they were sick but if they had know that the war would go on for 3 years, they wouldn't have done that. Nanny told to her parents to go to that sanatorium too." At first they didn't want to go there because they didn't know her but they finally did. I hid in the manager's sister's house so I knew she was a good person.   At the same time my neighbor took me to the place that I hid in and when I went to the sanatorium, my parents had already got there. We were told that the manager was good but was a Jew so when the Germans would come to take him, they would also take all the Jews at the sanatorium. The manager told my parents to go to his sister's house, where I was hiding. So, my parents and I lived in the same place for almost a year. This place did not suit my parents. The people we lived with had economical difficulties.    Our being there made it even more difficult. Although each of us brought money with him it wasn't enough, so we settled for what we could get." Gradually, the Dutch underground became active. 

" They did things that were not allowed and helped people who were hiding. To get food we needed coupons which we did not have. They stole a lot of them from municipalities or forged them and brought them to us. I had had one that was obviously fake so members of this group made sure that I got the card they had stolen.

The family who helped us were very religious Protestants who believed in helping people and not killing them. They had three children, two daughters and a son. I knew one girl who had worked in Gouda, the one worked in the hospital and the son was part of the underground. It was very dangerous for them too. But the three children were not the only children living there. Another girl, called Miri (Miriam) Balfour Burlough lived there too. She was a very nice 16 year old girl. I knew the name Balfour; it was very well known. I asked her if she was from the family of Lord Balfour but she did not know. She said she came from a family of nobility but she was not sure. It turns out that 'Burlough' was the name of her house. She was not like the others. She received Newspapers and told us all kinds of interesting news. I had a very good relationship with her. She told me she had a boyfriend whose father's family came from Gouda.  He was a dentist. The family we lived with did not want her to be in touch with this guy but she refused and she told us everything she did. We told her she'd better stop because if they caught her it would not be good. She would not agree. After the war she married him and I was at their wedding in a church."

"When we were in this house we found out something had happened where my sister was hiding and that the Germans had caught my sister and sent her to Camp Sterbork in Holland and then transferred her to Sobibor. She did not come back."

"One day when the family we were living with was not home, we suddenly heard a "boom." My mom had fallen off the ladder and broken her nose. Miri and I did not know what to do because we could not go outside and my mother had to be treated. A few minutes later the family came home with a doctor. The father of the family counted on the doctor not to tell that we were Jews.   The doctor examined my mother and said she had to go to the hospital which was very dangerous.   So, the mother of the family, who was very good at dealing with such situations, told her to go to the hospital and use her name. My mother spent a long time in the hospital and as time passed they started asking all kinds of questions. My father was deaf and sometimes he would make noise when visitors came to the house. For example - if he had to go to the toilet he opened and closed the door loudly not understanding that it was very dangerous because we could be caught. As a result, when my mother recovered, we had move to another place.   The underground sent my parents to Barneveld in Southern Holland and I stayed with the family. In Barneveld Jews were liberated before we were.  My parents tried to get work but they could not because of their age. I moved from place to place seven times in two years. I went to a very nice and very small family then spent four weeks in Zwist where I had a very good relationship with the family. I met their two children but did not have such a good relationship with them.  Their third child was born after the war. One child, Hans, was 7 years old and he used to play outside. One member of the family worked in all kinds of forbidden things, so I had to leave because it was too dangerous to stay there. Later I stayed with someone in Noordwijk, near the North Sea for a month or two. Then a doctor took me to Zoeterwoude, a city divided into Catholics and Protestants. The doctor who took me in was a Catholic therefore I went to the Catholic region. Since all my friends had been Protestant I did not know how to be a Catholic and I was afraid of being discovered. He told me to say I was Protestant. I came to that region because the food was better and I had got sick from the lack of food where I had previously stayed. I lived with the next family until the end of the war. An older man and his adult children- three sons and one daughter. The boys worked in the cow pasture. I got well there but I was far away."

When Holland was liberated, her parents could not return to Gouda because there wasn't transportation. Nanny, however, could get back to Gouda from where she was. Nanny came home but the house was full of furniture that did not belong to her family. So she went to the municipality and asked what to do and whether she could live there. They said they would come to take the things, but in the meantime Nanny could go home. The municipality organized a warehouse with all the furniture and each one who returned could take his furniture. She also looked there and found something which had belonged to her family. The house was so dirty that they couldn't see the carpet. They cleaned and organized and waited for Nanny's parents to come home so they could start their lives again.

After the war Nanny lived in Gouda until 1950 when she came to Israel as a tourist for two months. Her father knew people he helped escape from Germany to Holland who helped her when she came here. She lived with them until she found her own place. Then Nanny got married and had one son, a microbiologist who lives in Rechovot. He is married and has three children, two sons, one finished the army, one serving in the army and one 17 year old daughter in 11^th grade.  They usually come to visit her on Saturdays and she visits them every month or two.