Bob Polak: ‘Naar buiten, lucht en lachen!’, top of pagte 152.
Reinier Claeszenstraat 2 second Floor (West) was the address where Betty Bloemendal (born: 1929) lived. She was a classmate of Anne Frank between 1941-1942, in the Jewish Lyceum. According to Anne Frank (in a note from June 15, 1942), Betty Bloemendal was “at school very clever, but that is due to her diligence, now her diligence leaves much to be desired.”
Betty Bloemendal was invited to Anne’s 13th birthday [party] on June 12, 1942, with other class members. Betty and her friend Harry Mets gave Anne Frank (author of “The dairy of a young girl”), the book Lydia’s Difficulties by Willy Pétillon [she was a popular Dutch author of girl’s books].
Although the Anne Frank had previously written some comments about Betty Bloemendal’s ‘poor’* background, later in the book she wrote about her with more compassion. On September 21, 1942 at the place they were hiding, Anne Frank heard, from helper Elli Vossen, that “Betty Bloemndal from my class, was also sent to Poland, terrible isn’t it, and we have it so nice here (in: De Dagboeken, version A)
Betty Bloemendal was gassed in Auschwitz on October 1, 1942. Her mother and only sibling, a brother, died the same day in Auschwitz. Her father died (a natural death) in Velp 1944.
(Translated with the help of Bert de Jong)
*As Anne Frank’s father was a factory owner, Betty may have seemed ‘poor’ by comparison. He was a lower paid clerk in an insurance company. However, their apartment was very nice, it was spacious and the apartment block (is still) was adjacent to a river.
It was rather insightful of Betty and her friend, Harry to give Anne Frank a gift of a book (as of course, she later became synonymous with her published diary). The book 'Lydia's Difficulties' was in a popular series of girls' books by a female Dutch author (who used a male 'pen name'). The genre, I believe was teenage angst.