Jan Wikkerink from Aalten (Netherlands) was a member of the Landelijke Organisatie voor Hulp aan Onderduikers (National Organization for Aid for People in Hiding). His wife and older children were also active in the resistance. They helped people in their area to go into hiding. In September 1943 they decided to rescue a newborn baby. The Jewish woman Lena Jedwab-Kropveld had given birth in hiding on a farm. Jan Wikkerink told all the neighbors that a baby had been abandoned on their doorstep during the night. In fact, a medical student who had secretly helped with the birth had brought the child.
Jan Wikkerink registered the baby boy as Willem Herfstink and a public health officer established his “Aryan” origins in the required “racial biological” assessment. Wikkerink found a new place for the parents to hide in Aalten, with his acquaintances the Wevers. Jan Wikkerink’s wife visited the Jedwabs now and then with little Willem or pushed him past the house in his baby carriage. After their liberation in March 1945, the rescuers returned Willem to his parents, who had survived in hiding.