Hans Dresden (* 1940) grows up in Amsterdam in an assimilated, intellectual Jewish family. One year later, her sister Judith is born. During the war years, the family is forced to move several times and eventually ends up in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. In the spring of 1943, the parents decide to put their children into hiding. The mother takes the two daughters to the railway station in Rotterdam, where they are handed over to a man from the resistance. At first, they are taken to Haarlem. Hans cannot stay there and is brought to the Veenendaal family in Aerdenhout. In this Protestant family with three children, she is lovingly taken in and remains there until the end of the war. Hans’s parents are arrested during a raid and interned in the Westerbork camp. There, they experience liberation on April 12, 1945. In May 1945, Hans and Judith are reunited with their parents. Later, Hans worked as a social worker and for more than twenty years was also professionally involved with people affected by the war in her role at the Pension and Compensation Council.
