Lena Kropveld and her husband, the rabbi Yitzack Jedwab, had to go into hiding to evade the deportations beginning in July 1942. They paid a family to stay on their farm in Lintelo. Lena Jedwab-Kropveld became pregnant in hiding, and gave birth to the baby in a haystack in September 1943. Her contractions lasted for days, with a pillow to quieten her screams. A medical student in hiding helped with the birth, against the farmer’s wife’s will. The baby was taken in secret to the Wikkerink family, who registered the alleged foundling as Willem Herfstink.
Lena Jedwab-Kropveld and her husband had to move to a new hiding place in June 1944. The Wikkerinks connected them with Cynthia and Bernard Wevers in Aalten. There, the couple could at least see their son regularly from a distance: Mrs. Wikkerink visited them or pushed little Willem past their house in a baby carriage.
All of them were liberated in March 1945. For Lena Jedwab, the reunion with her son was both good and bad: after their long separation, he took a long time to grow accustomed to his parents. The Jedwabs emigrated to the United States in 1948.
Wedding photo, Lena Kropveld and Yitzack Jedwab, March 1942. Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C., Gift of Lennie Kropveld Jade
The Jedwabs and their rescuers after liberation. Left to right: Betsy, Bernard, Gerrit, and Cynthia Wevers, Aron Jedwab with his parents, and Aleida (Leidje) Wevers, Aalten, 1945. Source: Nationaal Onderduikmuseum, Aalten
The Wevers family home with the attic hiding place for the Jewish Jedwabs in Aalten, undated. Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C., Gift of Lennie Kropveld Jade
The Jedwab family’s farewell photo, taken shortly before their emigration to the United States, 1948. Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C., Gift of Lennie Kropveld Jade
