A Family in Holland
This site is dedicated to peace and healing and to the five de Kadt children: Pauline, Esther, Hanna and Abraham, who died in Leeuwarden in July 1942, to David Jan, the baby who survived, and to the adults who died by their own hands in despair.
My name is Caroline Roos Meeks (Line). I am named for my grandmother, Caroline Magdalena Polak Roos (Car). This story focuses on her and her sisters, Bertha Davida (Bertie) de Kadt and Ella Pauline (Ella) Cohen, their journey, and that of their children through World War 2.
Before the war Car moved to California, and her parents followed. Bertie stayed in Leeuwarden and Ella in Deventer. In July 1942, as the deportations began, Bertie and her husband George took their own lives and the lives of four of their children; their baby, David Jan, was saved by his nurse. Ella's family went into hiding, each of them separately: Ella, her husband and their daughter Leny survived, but their son Hans was betrayed and murdered at Auschwitz in 1944, aged 11.