Hanneke Ippisch

Hanneke Eikema (23 March 1925 – 15 April 2012) was a Dutch woman who, during World War II, helped ferry Jewish children to safety and assisted in the financial logistics of the Dutch resistance.

Hanneke A. Ippisch-Eikema
Born(1925-03-23)23 March 1925[1]
Benningbroek, Netherlands
Died15 April 2012(2012-04-15) (aged 87)[1]
Missoula, Montana, U.S.
NationalityDutch
Other names"Ellie", "Miep"
OccupationDutch resistance worker
Years active1944–1945
Notable work
Sky: a True Story of Courage during World War II

Biography

Eikema, the daughter of a Protestant minister[2] who was himself involved with the resistance, was born in Benningbroek[1] and grew up in Zaandam. After she saw one of her classmates and the classmate's family get arrested and deported, she began ferrying Jewish children to safety in Friesland (by train, and on the Veerdienst Enkhuizen – Stavoren, the Enkhuizen-Stavoren ferry), under the nickname "Ellie".[3] She joined the resistance proper in 1944 and, now named "Miep", became the personal courier for Walraven van Hall, leader and banker of the movement, entrusted with carrying large amounts of money and arranging meetings of senior resistance members.[3]

Following information obtained under torture from Teus van Vliet, who himself had been betrayed by the Dutch collaborator Johan van Lom, Eikema, along with van Hall and four other senior members of the resistance, was arrested on 27 January 1945 in Amsterdam, on the Leidsegracht. She was interrogated in the prison on the Amstelveenseweg, by Emil Rühl. Van Hall was executed a few weeks later, but Eikema survived the war.[3]

Eikema moved to Sweden, and married Fiddi Rappe, a member of the nobility, with whom she emigrated to America. Her husband, a biochemist, got a job at the University of California, Berkeley,[3] and they settled in the San Francisco Bay area, where she worked as an art teacher and ran a Dutch restaurant.[4] Later the family (by then with four children) moved to Montana, and Eikema divorced her Swedish husband and married an American, Les Ippisch. She began a bed and breakfast, and gave lectures and wrote about her war experiences.[3] She also wrote a number of books for children, including Sky: a True Story of Courage during World War II;[5] the title (Sky) was derived from the view of the sky from her prison window on the Amstelveenseweg.[6] She died at age 87 of Alzheimer's disease,[3] in Missoula, Montana.[1]

gollark: Almost certainly not!
gollark: Oh. Yes. Right. That.
gollark: Entirely reasonable.
gollark: If I can make the thing op me everywhere when a thing happens, I can *also* have it check a TOTP thingy from my phone.
gollark: Maybe I can make my own more securer™ operation system which does two factor auth.

References
  1. "Albertine Hanneke Eikema Ippisch". Missoulian. 10 May 2012. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  2. Heere, Peter H.; Vernooij, Arnold Th; Bos, Jan M.M. van den (2005). De Eerebegraafplaats te Bloemendaal. Sdu. p. 728.
  3. de Waard, Peter (28 April 2012). "Hanneke Ippisch-Eikema (1925–2012)". de Volkskrant (in Dutch).
  4. "Albertine Hanneke Eikema Ippisch". Missoulian. 10 May 2012.
  5. "Sky: a True Story of Courage during World War II by Hanneke Ippisch". thechildrenswar.blogspot.com. 8 September 2011.
  6. Chaney, Rob (21 May 2012). "Western Montana Lives: Hanneke Ippisch – From a teenage Dutch spy to creator of ornaments". Missoulian. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
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