\u201cWe had a good life, family, friends and neighbours,\u201d Boe-Fishman said. But then, in May 1940, the German army invaded the Netherlands.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Boe-Fishman shared the story of her family\u2019s survival at a commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the Bayit, in Richmond, on Jan. 25.<\/p>\n After the Nazis overran the Netherlands, her father\u2019s parents and siblings were deported to Westerbork, a Nazi transit camp in the Netherlands, on Sept. 3, and on to Auschwitz, where they were immediately murdered, on Sept. 7.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Her father was a scientist and his young research assistant, Jan Spiekhout, a member of the Dutch resistance to the Nazis, would save the lives of the entire van Kreveld family.<\/p>\n \u201cJan Spiekhout found immediately an address for my father to go into hiding,\u201d Boe-Fishman recalled. \u201cHe then found different hiding addresses for my mother, another address for my brother and then one for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n Amalia was not yet a year old and her parents knew they might never see their children again.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother gave me a special doll to keep me company and a letter I brought with me so my new family would understand her little girl a little better,\u201d said Boe-Fishman. \u201cIn the letter, [she] told them how fond I was of my older brother Dik. If my parents would not survive the war, the Holocaust, to send us together to Israel to stay with one of my mother\u2019s sisters.\u201d<\/p>\n Amalia was taken to the home of Spiekhout and his parents, Durk and Froukje Spiekhout. The crowded and deeply religious Dutch Reformed household already had six children, of which Jan was the eldest. The younger Spiekhout children were told that Amalia was the daughter of a sick aunt in Rotterdam.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey became my family,\u201d said Boe-Fishman. \u201cFather Spiekhout took a great risk bringing me into his household. He was a policeman. After all, policemen were supposed to work for the Nazis and round up Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n She learned later that he instead warned Jewish neighbours of impending Nazi roundups.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father, typically Jewish looking, with dark hair, went from hiding place to hiding place \u2013 at least 26 different addresses,\u201d Boe-Fishman said. \u201cAll at night and all arranged by Jan Spiekhout. My mother, not so typically Jewish looking, did not need to flee so often.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAs for myself, I don\u2019t know what I remember or what I was told later on,\u201d she said. \u201cI was not allowed to go outside and I had to stay indoors for three years.\u201d<\/p>\n On April 15, 1945, Canadian forces liberated Leeuwarden.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did that mean for me?\u201d she asked. \u201cLiberation should have been a really happy time for me. I was told that I could go outdoors. I didn\u2019t know what to expect, what was waiting for me outdoors. Indoors had become my entire life. Indoors was where I felt secure and safe. Indoors was all I knew.\u201d<\/p>\n Greater change was to come.<\/p>\n \u201cI was told I had a real family and I was told I was going home,\u201d she said. \u201cBut who were those people, who were those strangers? I did not want to leave the family Spiekhout. They were my real family and I loved them. My own father and mother were patient with me. They would come over to visit and I would run away or hang onto Mother Spiekhout screaming, \u2018I don\u2019t want to go home!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Dik, who was now 7-and-a-half, was also a stranger to little Amalia. Most incredibly, and at profound danger, a younger sibling had been born in hiding, a baby named Jan, in honour of the family\u2019s saviour.<\/p>\n The name Jan has profound resonance in the family. Amalia\u2019s oldest son, who joined her at the commemoration, was born in 1962 and is also named Jan.<\/p>\n That the entire immediate family had survived the Holocaust \u2013 had grown, in fact \u2013 was almost inconceivable. Dutch Jews had one of the lowest survival rates during the Holocaust. The van Krevelds owed everything to the Spiekhout family who, in 2008, were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem\u2019s Holocaust Martyrs\u2019 and Heroes\u2019 Remembrance Authority. Boe-Fishman and her children attended a ceremony honouring the Spiekhouts in The Hague in 2009.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 1961, Boe-Fishman (then van Kreveld) went to Israel trying to find her Jewish identity. The Eichmann trial was taking place at the time, which cracked open consciousness of the Holocaust not only for most of the world, but for survivors, including her family, who had remained almost entirely silent on the subject. In Israel, she met and married a Canadian Jew from Vancouver and settled here becoming, among other things, a devoted speaker to class groups and others about her Holocaust experiences.<\/p>\n Rabbi Levi Varnai of the Bayit contextualized Boe-Fishman\u2019s presentation.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that this year \u2013 every year, but this year maybe more than any year \u2013 with all the craziness in the world, this event is even more important than ever before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Keith Liedtke, president of the Bayit, served as master of ceremonies and credited Michael Sachs, now regional director for Jewish National Fund of Canada, for starting the tradition five years ago of inviting the mayor to recognize Holocaust Remembrance Day annually.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Cantor Yaakov Orzech chanted El Moleh Rachamim. Richmond\u2019s Mayor Malcolm Brodie read the proclamation and reflected on Boe-Fishman\u2019s experiences. RCMP Chief Superintendent Dave Chauhan joined the mayor and survivors in lighting memorial candles. Liedtke read a message from Steveston-Richmond East Member of Parliament Parm Bains. Kelly Greene, member of the Legislative Assembly for Richmond-Steveston, brought greetings from Premier David Eby. Also in attendance were Richmond South Centre MLA Henry Yao and Richmond city councilors Chak Au, Andy Hobbs and Bill McNulty.<\/p>\n In addition to the Bayit, the event was presented with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Kehila Society of Richmond and Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Richmond RCMP Chief Superintendent Dave Chauhan, left, lights memorial candles with survivors David Schaffer, Sidi Schaffer, Amalia Boe-Fishman and Ilona Mermelstein, and Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie at a commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the Bayit, in Richmond, on Jan. 25. (photo by Pat Johnson) Amalia Boe-Fishman was born in Leeuwarden, in the Netherlands, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9653,6432,4242,53,20755,5768],"class_list":["post-43496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-amalia-boe-fishman","tag-bayit","tag-history","tag-holocaust","tag-levi-varnai","tag-survivor"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"photo](\"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/feb-09-Holocaust.09.IHRD-Amalia-Boe-Fishman-and-son-Jan-Fishman.jpg\")
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