Jacqueline van Maarsen

Who is Jacqueline van Maarsen?

)Jacqueline Yvonne Meta van Maarsen (Born January 30, 1929), simply known as "Jacque van Maarsen" is a Dutch bookbinder and writer. She is best known for her friendship with diarist Anne Frank. Jacque's Christian mother was able to remove the J (Jew) signs from the family's identity cards (Jacque's father was Jewish) during the Second World War, an act which helped the van Maarsens to escape the Nazis.

Jacque was born in Amsterdam to a Dutch Jewish father, Hijman van Maarsen, and a French, Christian mother, Elline van Maarsen. Jacque has a sister, Christiane. [1] Jacque studied in a normal school of Amsterdam until 1940- when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Then Jacque had to move to a Jewish school. In the Jewish school, Jacqueline befriended many girls, including Anne Frank and Hanneli Goslar. Anne and Jacque became best friends, and they often visited each others' houses and did their homeworks together. Jacque was the secretary of the pingpong club Little Bear Minus Two (the club was opened by her friends).

In July 1942, Anne's family went into hiding, although Jacque didn't know about this.

Meanwhile, the Nazis were arresting Jews of the whole country. Jacque, who was half-Jewish felt threat of arrest. Jacque's French mother, who was a Christian, was successfully able to remove the "J" (Jew) signs from the family's ID cards. These acts helped the van Maarsens to have a escape from the Nazis. Jacque was shifted to a normal school from the Jewish school.

After the war, Jacque came to know Anne didn't survive the war. Otto Frank, Anne's father, got in touch with Jacque. Jacque was one of the first people whom Otto Frank showed Anne's diary. In 1947 The Diary of a Young Girl was published.

Jacque became a bookbinder. She married her childhood friend, Ruud Sanders, in 1954. [2] They had three children, Marteen, Joost and Lili.

Since 1987, Jacque has been giving speeches about Anne Frank in different schools of Germany and United States.

Jacque has written four books about her friendship with Anne Frank. Jacque still lives in Amsterdam, and has seven grandchildren.

Famous Quotes:

• 'I was 11 when the Germans invaded Holland. I remember seeing the planes flying overhead and sensing the great agitation of my parents. I thought we might get bombed or we might not get enough food, but the idea that we faced another threat because we were Jewish didn’t even enter my head. My mother was a Parisian Catholic, and although my father had registered us as Jewish in Amsterdam in 1938 — he wanted us to be part of the Jewish community, like the rest of his Dutch family — my older sister and I weren’t really brought up as Jewish. '
• 'Otto gave me a copy of the farewell letter Anne wrote to me in hiding. I was surprised because there were two letters: the second was a reply to a letter she pretended I had written to her. She wrote: “I am thinking so much of you,” and “Let’s always be good friends until I come back.” She must have been very lonely. '