Route of Commemorative Plaques
7. Scheltemalaan 3
This was the home of EMMA VAN DILLEWIJN
Murdered in Ravensbrück on 06/03/1945
Emma van Dillewijn was born in Rostock on 2 November 1900. She was unmarried and worked as a foster care inspector for Maatschappij Zandbergen in Amersfoort. On Scheltemalaan, where she lived, there were the children’s homes Korhoen and Zandwijk and also Treekerbergje and the Ortthuis nearby. Thome at Zandbergen are also the three young peopleErich Julius Weil,Cornelia Maria Klein andHans Gerd Angress. Erich and Hans sought accommodation at Zandbergen after fleeing Germany and Cornelia ended up in the children’s home due to her home situation.
Photo by Monique Zwart
On Paradijsweg, Huize Ingeborg was also used as a children’s home. Emma visited foster families across the country and had a large network for finding places where children could go into hiding. The children’s home filled up, Jewish children were given pseudonyms, the homes were requisitioned and director Mulock Houwer was arrested in September 1942 for his resistance activities and deported to Natzweiler. Emma was a valuable force behind the organisation and a huge support for Mrs Mulock Houwer who, after the arrest of her husband, took over day to day management.
War Diary Zandbergen
In 1944, police officers and NSB employees Cabalt and Beumer were tasked with searching the house at Scheltemalaan 3. The war diary of Zandbergen says: ‘8 March 1944 Arrest of Emmy van Dillewijn; bombing of Soesterberg. Seizure of stable and boss’s office.
Hidden in a cupboard
Emma was arrested for hiding seven Jewish persons. In the basement of the house, they found two Jewish women who were hidden in a cupboard and, upstairs another five Jews. Their names: Johanna Maria Catharina van Westerborg, Naatje Polak, Margot Kilinski, Dina Hooremans-Engers, the couple Betje and Abraham Polak and Bella Polak-Beem. All of them were aged between 41 and 56. On 10 September 1944, the victims were ‘removed from the office by the SD to be transferred to Rotterdam’, according to the handwritten police report from 1944. The Jewish victims were murdered between the end of March and August 1944 in Auschwitz. Abraham died on 21 April 1945 in Czernowitz (now in Ukraïne). Emma went from Rotterdam to Ravensbrück via Camp Westerbork and was issued with camp number 66811. In Ravensbrück, Emma died on 6 March 1945. The war diary indicates that on 25 May 1945, once the director had returned, alive, from Dachau: ‘The postman arrived with stacks of post from all corners of our country. Nothing yet known about Miss Emmy van Dillewijn.’
At home at Zandbergen
Mulock Houwer, who grew up as an orphan at Zandbergen and was the director of Zandbergen before the war, survived the Natzweiler and Dachau camps and returned to Zandbergen in mid-May 1945. His friend, who was arrested with him, Cornelis Sisselaar did not survive the camps. On 5 May 1945, as the girls’ group from Treekerbergje was still staying at the Rembrandtschool due to their home being requisitioned, the German-Jewish girl Elfriede Ingenkamp was shot dead. Read more about the 140 year history of Zandbergen in the book ‘Thuis bij Zandbergen‘.
