de Kadt Family and Leeuwarden
My father's family tried to forget WW2. I think they felt it better not to speak of it much, and now that I know more of the story, I can understand why they would feel that way. However, I think for my generation, and our children its better to know, to have the facts.
I had heard the story, or a piece of it, a couple of times from my father. The sister of his mother and her husband had killed themselves and 4 of their children after Hitler invaded Holland. The fifth, the baby, was taken by the nurse, a true heroine, and after the war they moved to California and the child David Jan, DJ, was raised by my fathers family. DJ died in his 20s, killed by a train as he waited for his girlfriend at a train station in Co Westchester, NY, perhaps or probably a suicide. DJ believed in love as a devine force in the universe. His Conscientious Objector Letter is here.
That was the story as I knew it and it always seemed terrible and haunting to me. I think I felt that learning more would make it make more sense, seem less terrible, and it ways that is true, but it many ways the full story is even more dramatic.
On November 1, 2011 I traveled to Leeuwarden to visit the grave of the de Kadt family.
When I first made the decision to embark on this journey, almost a year earlier, I had thought it would be difficult. I suspected that I would not be able to find the grave and that no one would have heard about or cared about the de Kadt family.
Holland, A Country that Remembers
WW2 is not such a distant thing in Holland. They have wonderful historical resources. I was able to find the de Kadt grave in a database on a government website with very little trouble. The family is also listed in the Jewish Monument database, although I did not find this until my trip.
Through the wonders of the internet (couchsurfer) I connected with a retired government official and historical writer then lived in Leeuwarden, Peter de Haan. The success of this trip is in so many ways due to his generosity and spirit of not hiding from history. Articles by Peter de Haan
The de Kadt Family
These photos of the de Kadt family are from newspaper archives. Search for keyword “de Kadt”.
Leny says the dog's name is Puck.