Elli meets the “family”
Elli Mantegari met the Wellington Jewish community this week…and thanked them for reuniting her with the family who saved her life as a baby in war-ravaged Amsterdam.
The Holocaust Centre’s Vera Egermayer told J-Wire: “We hosted the visit of Elli Mantegari, her sister Leni Radziner and the Hakkens family, descendents of Frits and Jo Hakkens who had hidden Elli as an 18 months old Jewish toddler in their apartment in Amsterdam for almost two years during the Nazi occupation. The Hakkens made many attempts over the years to find Elli and had almost given up when they saw a film the “ Power of good” which the Holocaust Centre had screened in Paekakariki the previous year as part of their outreach educational programme. Inspired by the story of Nicholas Winton who was reunited with the children he had saved for the first time 50 years later, they renewed their search and finally located Elli living in Brazil with her children and grandchildren. The families made contact and Elli made the journey with her sister Lea Radzinger to Wellington to say thank you.
Elli, her sister and the Haakens met other Dutch child survivors who had come to New Zealand after the war at the Holocaust Centre and discusses their haunting experiences as children. In his speech, the Dutch ambassador HE Arie Van der Wiel praised the Wellington Holocaust Centre for its work and emphasised how important it is to keep such stories alive.”
Vera Egermayer, herself a child survivor, organised the event and spoke about the common aspects of Nicholas Winton’s and Elli’s stories. Both are about what decent and determined individuals are capable of doing to help others if they are willing to act.
Egermayer explained the role she played….
“I am delighted that I was asked to organise today’s event and I would like to tell you how I came to be involved in this story.
A year ago a little boy and his grandfather came up to me after I had presented a film on behalf of our Holocaust Centre. They said they were very moved by the film and wanted advice on how to renew their search for a baby girl whom their family had sheltered in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. The film was called the “Power of Good”. It told a story which had almost been lost- that of Nicholas Winton who saved hundreds of Czechoslovakian Jewish children from the Nazis. For 50 years, he never knew what became of those children and they never knew who saved them. And then miraculously the whole story came to light.
A similar story was coming to fruition within the Hakkens family in New Zealand- and over the last week it has burst forth and gone right around the world. You will all be familiar with it. Like the Nicholas Winton story it culminated in a happy end last week when the rescued child Elli Mantegari flew into Wellington airport from Brazil to meet the family of her rescuers.
Since then, this story has been told from different angles, with different protagonists taking centre-stage. We have Elli the rescued child herself, her sister,Lea, the two sons of the rescuers, Marcel and Richard, their great-grandson Caleb and their daughter-in-law, Gloria. And like all good stories it will go on being told and retold and new subplots and different characters will emerge. But what we must never forget is that the central figures- the heroes- those we are here to remember today even though they are no longer with us, are- Frits and Johanna Hakkens- a young couple – in their early twenties- who risked their lives- who took in someone else’s baby, looked after it, shared what little food they had with it, hid it under the false floor of a cupboard whenever danger loomed, and finally gave it back to its own family. The story is about what decent and determined individuals are capable of doing to help others else if they are willing to act. Underlying their deeds we see the values that they represent and the standard of behavior that they set for us all.
Several of us here today are child survivors- some were hidden, like Elli and her sister Lea, some got out in time and some, like me, did not get out in time and survived concentration camps or ghettos. Our experience has been diverse but there is a common bond that binds us all – an unspoken understanding of what we lost and also what we gained. We lost our childhood. We gained a deep appreciation of human kindness. None of us will ever forget those who helped us- our friends in need- and we will always do our utmost to pay that debt. That is why Elli made the long journey, over time and distance, to say thank you to the Hakkens family. That is why we showed the film the “Power of Good”. The good which both Nicholas Winton and Jo and Frits Hakkens demonstrated through their actions does have a power, transcending generations and continents, and it is the power of that good which has brought us together here, on this day, in our Centre.”
Read Elli’s amazing story here
Thank you for telling it, a wonderful heart warming story. Being myself a child Holocaust survivor born in Prague in 81 years ago and now living in Sydney, Australia I can apreciate what Eli went thru’ and how wonderful that she found the Hakkens family to thank them.
In case you are not aware of it, there is a follow-up film to Nicholas Winton’s “Power od Good” – a Czech re-enactment film that premiered earlier this year, the reviews of it are very positive. I am trying to get a copy of it to show it with at the Sydney Jewish Museum where I am a volunteer guide.
Peter.