Elbert Willem Colenbrander
| Geslacht: | Man | |
| Vader: | Bernard Colenbrander | |
| Moeder: | Hendrika Christina Lensink | |
| Geboren: | 7 Juni 1922 | Wisch |
| Overleden: | 15 Feb 2015 | Aalten |
| Religie: | Geref. | |
| Aantekeningen: | Last Name: Colenbrander First Name: Elbert Willem Date of Birth: 07/06/1922 Rescuer's fate: survived Nationality: THE NETHERLANDS Religion: PROTESTANT Gender: Male Profession: farm manager Place during the war: Varsseveld, Gelderland, The Netherlands Rescue Place: Varsseveld, Gelderland, The Netherlands Rescue mode: Hiding File number: File from the Collection of the Righteous Among the Nations Department (M.31.2/10711) The Colenbrander family, the parents, Bernard and Hendrika, and their eleven children, some of them of age, lived on a farm in the village of Varsseveld (prov. Gelderland), on the border with Germany. They were devout Protestants. Like others in the village, the Colenbranders decided to join a local underground cell. With the onset of the deportation of the Jews to the death camps in the summer of 1942, they came forward to help some who had fled from the western part of the country to look for hiding places in the rural east. The Colenbranders took in Jaap and Dien Bonnettemaker and their son Monie. Two special hiding areas were prepared -- one for the Jews in hiding, and one for other temporary hiders as well as for their son Elbert, as he was eligible for forced labor in Germany, but refused to go. On February 7, 1944, Bernard Colenbrander was betrayed, arrested and sent to the Vught (Herzogenbusch) concentration camp in the south of the Netherlands. As a house search was imminent, 19-year-old Elbert moved the three Bonnettemakers instantly elsewhere and he himself went into hiding. While Hendrika was now managing the household alone with her children, two Monnikendam brothers (later, Chulata) from Amsterdam, Isidoor, b.1927, and Ben, b.1925, knocked on her door in the spring of 1944. They had been in hiding in the area with another farmer, but were obliged to leave when their money ran out. They originally went into hiding during a major razzia that took place in Amsterdam in May 1943. An older brother had already been picked up in June 1941 and deported to Mauthausen concentration camp where he was murdered. The two brothers had tried to convince their parents to also go into hiding, but they had not wanted to burden anyone, and decided to answer the order to report for "work in the East". They were murdered in Auschwitz later that year. In their desperation, the brothers came to the Colenbranders who let them in. The brothers stayed mostly in the special hiding room behind the pigsty, where they often passed the time making straw baskets. On May 10, 1944, Bernard was released from Vught, where he had been brutally interrogated, and returned home. In spite of the increased danger, Ben and Isidoor Monnikendam, now answering to the name Karel, were allowed to stay on. Their relations with the Colenbranders were very good. After some time, the Colenbranders were asked to take in two more Jews, Henk and Anna Lobstein, who had been hiding in the woods in the area. They agreed, and Elbert went out to get them, even though he was not to be seen as an evader of forced labor. During the last months of the occupation, German soldiers billeted the Colenbrander home. Even though this further endangered the family, they let the Jews stay. They now had to make sure that they took food and other necessities to the Jews in their hiding place each time the Germans went out. The four Jews stayed with the Colenbranders until the liberation of the village in April 1945. In all, seven Jews survived thanks to their care as also did numerous evaders of forced labor, resistance workers and downed Allied pilots. On October 27, 2005, Yad Vashem recognized Hendrika and her son Elbert Colenbrander as Righteous Among the Nations. On December 26, 2005, Yad Vashem recognized Bernard Colenbrander as Righteous Among the Nations. |
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