Maud Dahme was born in Amersfoort, Holland. In 1942, the Germans sent letters to all the Jewish families ordering them to appear at a railroad station with one suitcase. The family was suspicious, and asked one of their Christian friends associated with the Resistance to hide Maud and her sister Rita. Their parents instructed them never to reveal that they were Jewish.
The girls were eventually taken to Elburg when they had to leave their first house. They stayed there with the Westerink family until April 1945. The winter of 1944 was so harsh and they had very little food to eat, so there were times they ate bulbs, or grilled bugs. They returned to Oldebroek in June 1945 after liberation. Their parents survived and reclaimed Maud and Rita but so many years had passed that the children had difficulty recognizing them.
They returned to Amersfoort. Their extended family had all died at the concentration camp Sobibor. In 1950, the family decided to move to New Jersey. Maud became a force in education–holding a variety of local and state posts. Maud became a passionate advocate of Holocaust education and was featured in a PBS documentary and at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Her family continues to grow.
“Respect each other more than anything because inside we are all the same and if we don’t have respect genocide will continue.”