The farmer Johannes Bogaard junior, known as Hannes, lived in Nieuw-Vennep near Amsterdam with his wife Klaasje Bogaard-Slinger and 13 children. His father’s and brother’s farms were also in the village. The Bogaards were devout Calvinists.
In July 1942 Hannes Bogaard hid the Jewish Mogendorff family on his farm. He made repeated trips to Amsterdam to collect other persecuted Jews.
The locals were aware that the family helped people living underground. The Bogaards’ farms were searched by the police on several occasions. Although Jews in hiding and family members were arrested in raids, the Bogaards continued taking in persecuted people. Hannes Bogaard was able to hide shortly before the last of the raids, in December 1943. Even after that, he went on helping persecuted Jews.
One of the Jews in hiding, whom Hannes Bogaard brought to Nieuw-Vennep when she was seven, reported that he had sexually assaulted her.
The Bogaards helped a total of around 300 Jews to go underground, hiding 100 on their own farms and finding other hiding places for a further 200.
Hannes Bogaard was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem in 1963.
A hiding place on the farm, as photographed by the German regular police, October 1943. Source: Beeldbank WO2 – NIOD, 212583
Jews being arrested on the Bogaards’ farm, as photographed by the German regular police, October 1943. Source: Beeldbank WO2 – NIOD, 212578
Hannes Bogaard planting a tree while being honored at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center, Jerusalem, October 22, 1963. Source: Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, 14470077
