Miriam Troostwyk - May 28, 1998 and June 3, 1999
The Joodse Raad
Um, I meant to ask you before, was there a Joodse Raad--the--a Joodse Raad, a Jewish Council, either in, in uh, in Velp--I--probably not in Velp. There weren't any Jews in
Velp, right?
There was only one family and that was...
So there wouldn't have been a Jewish Council. What about in Amersfoort?
A counselor?
A Jewish council...
About...
A Joodse Raad.
What did he do?
No, it's a, it's uh, an organization. The--I'm mispronouncing it, I'm sure. This Jewish...
Joodse Raad.
Joodse Raad, yeah.
No, it was not, it was in Amsterdam. And my...
Just, just in Amsterdam.
father-in-law, he was in the Joodse Raad. But he called it, not the Joodse Raad. He called it the Joodse Faraad
Which is...
That is what everybody said, Faraad.
Which is what?
Um, that...
Collaborator.
a little bit...
Collaborator.
work with, with, with the Germans...
Did they...
a little bit.
And did you think that? I mean, while you were just a child?
Well, I was a child and I not involved with this, so I don't know. But after the war I heard um, they called it the Jewish, uh...
Yes.
be-traders or however you say it.
Traders, yeah.
They...
Collaborators, I think.
Co--no, the collaborators, they were not collaborators. They couldn't--they tried to do--my father-in-law was the finest man you can imagine.
So they tried to make it easier.
And he tried to make it easier. But they were the working tools from the Germans.
Uh-huh.
And that is very often because when Kissinger did a lot...
Hm.
in uh, with Sadat and everybody, a lot of people said, he's too good for the Arabs and he forgets that Israel belongs to the Jews, because they need a country for themselves. Whether it's old or it's not old, it doesn't matter, the United Nations said, this is Israel, so Israel is alive and this is Israel and we need Israel. Not of the old uh, because they were in the Bible there, no we need it--nothing with the Bible, we need it. Because anti-Semitism from churches will be always. And um, so Kissinger can be a very good Jew, I don't know him. But the Joodse Raad were very good too, but they were working tools for their...
Yeah. Cohen and Asscher, they were the two men who...
Yeah.
Um, so the, the, the--let's get back to the, the Vandenbergs.
Yes.
Um, you think--you, you think they were anti-Semitic too?
No.
They were just Catholic.
Yes. Maybe they--when there is um, a, a pastor in, in, in the synagogue and he would tell always about that uh, Jesus was a Jew and he is killed by the Jews, then that is what Austrian Catholics, a lot did and in Germany too, maybe in Holland too, but I never heard that from them, never, ever--never, never. They were very nice, simple, poor people.
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