When Willem “Wim” Blees turned 80 last year, he celebrated by returning to his hometown of Amstelveen in the Netherlands. Surrounded by family and a local news team, he stood in front of his childhood home reveling in the joy of the occasion while wistfully remembering the memories of his time in post-World War II Europe.
I get emotional thinking about it. I grew up there until I was 11,” said Wim, a retired piano tuner who lives in the Palencia neighborhood. “So, to have my family there to celebrate this … it was just so, so much joy.” The highlight of the day, he added, was his family singing “Happy Birthday”–in his native tongue. “What surprised me most was that my son and grandkids had gone online and learned to sing “Happy Birthday” in Dutch,” he laughed. “We were all staying at a hotel, and they had literally learned it on the way to the house.”
While his childhood home represents a deeply personal past, it also has an important place in history as a refuge for Jews hiding from persecution. Both the owner’s family–the DeWitts–and Wim’s own family hid Jewish families in an attic hideaway. “The owner has owned the house since 1940, and he built a separate room in the attic,” recalls Wim. “He was a Gentile, but his wife was Jewish, and they had three kids. In addition to them hiding, they constantly had other people come through the house to stay for a couple of weeks or months. My Mom and Dad didn’t move into that house until January of 1945. So when they moved in, I guess they were kind of told [hiding Jewish families] comes with the house.”
Between 25,000 and 30,000 Jews went into hiding in the Netherlands during World War II. Through the efforts of the DeWitt and Blees families, and other Resistance supporters across the country, two-thirds of those Jews survived the war. Their efforts weren’t without risk. During the war, Wim’s parents hid people in the attic room built by the DeWitt family. The space was hidden behind a door that had been disguised with a shelf holding a bottle of gin, and a dresser in front of it. “When the Gestapo searched the house, they moved the dresser and exposed the door, leaving my parents terrified,” Wim said. “But, when they saw the bottle of gin, they assumed that was the reason for my parents’ anxiety, since it was illegal for locals to possess alcohol. The soldiers took the gin and left, never finding those people hiding in the attic. I wouldn’t be sitting here if those soldiers took a minute to look in the door.”
In the fall, Wim will be joining a speakers circuit created by the Jewish Federation & Foundation of Northeast Florida to share moments in history among high school students. For Wim, the return to Amstelveen was more than a birthday trip. It was a homecoming layered with gratitude, loss and remembrance. The visit celebrated a life well lived, but also honored the quiet bravery of ordinary families who risked everything to save others. As he prepares to share his story with students this fall, Wim hopes those memories, both joyful and painful, will keep that history alive for a new generation.
