Klara Groen-Waas (* 1938) grew up in Amsterdam as the child of a Jewish family. At the age of four, she was placed in the care of a family in Baarn by members of the Dutch resistance so that she would be safe from persecution by the Nazis. No hiding place could be found for her sister Sara, who was two years older; her parents, Soesman and Marretje Waas, went into hiding with Sara near Soest, but had to leave the hiding place for financial reasons and return to Amsterdam. There, the father, mother, and daughter were arrested and interned in the Westerbork camp. Marretje and Sara were sent to Theresienstadt on the last train; after a short stay, they were sent on to Auschwitz, where they were murdered in October 1944. Soesman did not return from a death march in February 1945. After the war, Klara initially lived with a Jewish family. Later she was taken in at the Bergstichting children’s home, which cared for children and young people who had lost their relatives. Klara stayed there until 1958 and worked as a primary school teacher. Later she became self-employed, running an antiques business. She gave testimony about her life in a video interview for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation, but otherwise Klara does not like to speak about her childhood – the memories are too painful for her.
