Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Miriam Troostwyk - May 28, 1998 and June 3, 1999

What's, what's his last name?

Santcroos, Santcroos.

Can you spell it?

S-a-n-t-c-r-"double o"-s. And he came, David, with the man who hide--hided six people, because the other four were hiding in Arnhem.

Uh-huh.

And they took us away there and the man said, with David, "You can stay with us. We have six people and with you four it will be ten. So we are with ten people." And that was--there was David Santcroos with Rosa, the younger sister from Edith's mother, Edith's mother and her daughter, Edith, Laynee, that was another sister from uh, Rosa and Elsa, from the--from Edith's mother and from Rosa, David's wife, Laynee and a cousin, Gita, so that was six. Then came my mother, my sister, my brother-in-law and me, were ten. We stayed there 'til uh, 1944.

When in 1944?

In 1944. But then...

But when? Winter, uh...

Uh, uh, in September there, it started the 2nd of September. It was that--the Mad Tuesday or something, Dolle Dinsdag.

Yeah, when they thought it was liberation?

Yes.

Yeah.

But I think then they came or a little bit before, that I don't know anymore. I could ask uh, Edith, but I don't know anymore. They had to evacuate Arnhem, because they were fighting and bombing, the Germans and uh, English and Americans together, from Nijmegen. There was the furrier from the Hague that was the brother from Rosa, David's wife, from Elsa and Laynee, which we knew. He, he was from the Hague, with his wife, Stella. She married him. She was um, from Vienna. She married uh, before the war with him. And her parents uh, went out of Vienna when there the Razzia started and they lived with them in the Hague.

Out of Vienna?

Yeah. And they came also in our hiding place. So then we were with fourteen. But Stella was pregnant. She expected her first baby. We were sleeping--we had two and a half rooms. Edith, her room was long as this part and wide maybe 'til here.

So roughly...

That was her room.

eight by ten...

There was the door.