Hendrik Hoeve van

Who is Hendrik Hoeve van?

The greengrocer around the corner to the north of the annexe, on Leliegracht (#58) who supplied their potatoes and vegetables. He kept a Jewish couple hidden in his home. He was a resistance worker: he helped other people who were in hiding elsewhere and put up anti-Nazi posters. Passing on the street one night he very likely saw the men of the secret annexe, during a robbery at the building. He said nothing but later mentioned that he guesses a lot. He delivered a lot of food (via handcart, using a list of addresses) to the Gies & Co. building right at lunch when the warehousemen were gone.

But, on 25 May 1944, he was discovered by the authorities and taken away with the two people he'd been keeping in hiding. His wife then helped Gies & Co. a bit with getting food. Someone had fingered the group of over 100 resistance workers he was in. Only five of them survived. He survived four or five concentration camps, with debilitating damage to his legs from freezing on the trains. The two Jews he'd kept hidden did not survive. He appeared in the 1959 movie, The Diary of Anne Frank, portraying himself. (CE86 p. 592, 598, 659, 661, 687: 11 April '44, 25 and 26 May '44, 8 July '44; HLOF p. 335; AFR p. 121; Frank House CD-ROM; FAF p. 72-73 — * this reference lists five places he was sent to, perhaps all were concentration camps: Vught, Oranienburg, Gross-Rosen, Dora, and Winsleben am See)