Naomi Roza Waas (* 1942) was born in Amsterdam, to a mother who had fled Hungary to the Netherlands in 1936. Her father worked as a funeral director for the Jewish community. When the family was ordered by the Nazis to report to be transported to the Westerbork camp they chose instead to go underground. Through contacts with the Rengelink resistance group, a hiding place was arranged for baby Naomi and she was separated from her parents. After finding refuge in the municipality of Hoofddorp, where she was betrayed and forced to flee immediately, she finally ended up with a family in Friesland. There, she was given a false name and passed off as a war refugee from Rotterdam. After the war, Naomi learned that her mother and grandparents had been murdered in Sobibor. She was taken in and raised by a Jewish foster family. Throughout her life Naomi has been burdened by a heavy sense of guilt, having survived unlike so many of her relatives.
