21-year-old Willemina Matje Godschalk, usually called Willy, married 24-year-old Emiel Meijers from Doetinchem on 29 April 1932, who was born there on 10 May 1907 as the youngest son of Izaak Meijers and Johanna de Winter. Willy had four children with Emiel. Emiel Meijers was born in a family of eight children, namely Abraham, Jacob, Elizabeth, Eduard, Leopold, Isedore, Michel and Emiel himself. Abraham, Leopold and Michel survived the Holocaust, Eduard and Isedore have died in infancy but Jacob, Elizabeth and Emiel were murdered in the Shoah.
Izaak Rudy, the son of Jacob Meijers and his wife Elizabeth van Geldere, survived the Shoah and after the war was taken into the family of Jacob's brother Michel, who had been married to Paulina Frank before the war. Their son Leo was born from that marriage in February 1938 and they survived the Holocaust by going into hiding. After the war, their son Jaap was born in 1947. Rudy grew up toegether with his cousins Leo and Jaap like brothers.
Willy's parents, Maurits Godschalk and Leentje Coltof, who had a ladies' fashion store in Castricum at Dorpsstraat 39, went into hiding on 6 March 1942. However, before going into hiding, Willy's mother, Leentje Coltof had deposited some valuable possessions with the mother of Truus Zonneveld-Kuijs, Mrs. Kuijs, who lived during the war above the store of the Godschalk family. Mrs. Kuijs always kept them and gave them to her daughter Truus before her death,"in case the Godschalk family ever come back". A beautifully hammered silver- coloured metal bowl with lid and a metal hammered two-piece cream set in Art Deco.
Truus, Mrs. Kuijs's daughter who was married to the artist Pé Zonneveld, came across the cream set and bowl when moving house. She asked Annette Beentjes of Oud Castricum to consider what should be done with the items. She made inquiries at the Historical Society in Ommen whether they knew more about the Godschalk family and in this way came into contact with Gerko Warner. He had been researching Jewish life in his hometown for years and was aware of the history of the Godschalk family. He also managed to trace surviving relatives of the Godschalks.
78 years later, the three surviving relatives, the brothers Jaap, Leo and Rudy Meijers from Amsterdam, have received the heirlooms back out from Truus Zonneveld, the daughter of Mrs.Kuijs, at an emotional meeting in the town hall of Castricum, thanks to work done by researchers Annette Beentjes and Gerko Warner.
On 15 December 2020, the three surviving relatives of the Jewish Godschalk family from Castricum, murdered in the Second World War, received the cream set and bowl back after 78 years, that mother Leentje had given for safe keeping to Mrs. Kuijs in 1942 who at the time lived in the upstairs flat at Dorpsstraat 39 in Castricum with her husband and daughters Truus and Elly.
Sources include Warner, Gerko, Jewish Homes volume 4, chapter Koningstraat 58-60, Den Helder; Zonneveld, conversations with Truus Zonneveld-Kuijs and her husband Pé Zonnenveld in 2019; Annette Beentjes, Old Castricum-the history of Dorpsstraat and its residents, volume 3; 28th Yearbook 2005; Koen van Eijk, journalist of the Noordhollands Dagblad (15 December 2020) and information provided by surviving relatives of the Godschalk and Meijers families.