According to a "call 1247/2 and 1247/3", Juliette and her daughter Grace had to report at the Polderweg on 23 May 1943, and also Esther (Elly) Blitz, who was married to Willem van West, as well Elly’s parents. They were “called” for “employment” in the East. (Arbeitseinsatz).
A few days earlier, the call had arrived at the Curacaostraat. The backpacks were already ready. Attempts were still made to obtain addresses to go into hiding. For Grace an address was found and she was given to Lotte de la Fuente to take the tram, as had happened before. She was accommodated in Drogeham in Friesland and survived the war there. Lotte has visited several times with Juliette’s parents Barmes in the Blasiusstraat. So she was a known woman. In the meantime, as much furniture and other items from the house as possible had already been moved elsewhere; the rest would be robbed. (“pulsed” – named after the removal company of Abraham Puls)
In the Curacaostraat was the house full of people who were waiting for the moment which was unavoidable. Her sister Jeanne, who had a “Sperre” as she worked in the fur workshop at Hirsch at Leideplein, making fur vests for the German Wehrmacht, had been warned and she was there, together with her husband Philip (Flip) Gompers. Five minutes before they would be picke up from home, 15:55 h., the doorbell rang but it appeared to be Mr. Van Eugen, the chief of Juliette’s husband Ab, who had worked in the bookstore of the “Arbeiderspers (A.P.) (Labour Press). He had provided a hiding place for Juliette in those last minutes. Mr. Van Eugen was in the resistance, and Lotte de la Fuente was his contact.
Elly and Willem were afraid. Together with Elly’s parents, they have reported at Polderweg. But Juliette did go; with her bag before her breast, to cover the yellow Jew star, she walked to Nassaukade, where on a certain address she stayed there for ten days. At this address, Mr. Van Eugen was there too. To avoid any risk during the ten days she stayed there, she had to sleep on the ground, against a sofa which had been put on its side, and which, in case of danger, could be put over her as cover.
After more than a week, she had to go to the Kinkerstraat in order to have made passport photo’s for her new but false I.D., without the J. Thereafter she had to stay for some weeks at an address at Singel and from there, she was sent for some tome to Laren and finally to an hiding place in Leiden. According to a postcard to her sister Jeanne in Sweden from 24 June 1945, her (hiding) address was Witte Singel 80 in Leiden. Meantime it had already become July 1943
When the war was over, Annie Cardozo-Gompers, the sister-in-law of Juliette’s sister Jeanne, has somehow managed to contact Juliette, who then was still in Leiden. She heard the name of Jeanne Gompers-Barmes on the radio which then meant that her sister Jeanne was still alive. Juliette told in December 1999 about what has happened that day: she has left Leiden the next day ata six o’clock in the morning and was able to ride from Leiden to Amsterdam with a military transport. In Amsterdam, she walked to Nieuwe Zijds Voorburgwal to the Parool building where lists of the Red Cross were hanging with the names of the survivors. That’s how she saw the name of her sister. Crying – crying – crying with sadness and joy.
She then went to Hoogstraat, where her cousin Sieny Cohen lived at the time, to tell her that Jeanne was still there, and they made a round dance of joy there. But then she realized that she had no more to go to, no house, no family, nothing more. She started walking to Amstellaan 13, to Sitters, the downstairs neighbours of Flip and Jeanne. After having arrived there she has been seized with a kind of epileptic fit and for some moments she did not know anything anymore. Later, she walked from there to the exit road to Leiden and Den Haag, (the end of the Aalsmeerweg), to hitchhike back to Leiden, the end of an emotional day.
When Juliette returned from Leiden in Amsterdam, she was able to start to live in an upstairs room with Sitters. Later, she could rent a room with Trude, the widow of Salomon Munnikendam, who lived after war end together with her son Ruben Abraham (Rubi) in a house in the Theophil de Bockstraat. There they have lived together, till Juliette at some point decided to look for dwelling space for herself.
Getting housing through official authorities or agencies was almost impossible and Juliette decided , together with the help of her former colleague Dien de Wit, canvassing street for street in Amsterdam-South, calling at every address asking if there was any housing available. And so they eventually found two rooms in Eemstraat nr. 24 3rd floor, with the Vos family, where Juliette and Grace could moved in. It was the attic floor, with small high windows, the kitchen (how it was called), in the hallway, a door to the roof terrace (how it was called) and a side room where Juliette and her daughter Grace slept, and where they lived until somewhere in the mid fifties. (±1955).
Before the war, Juliette lived in the Blasiusstraat 66 1st floor – when she was married in the Uithoornstraat 11 parterre and in the Curacaostraat 18 2nd floor. Durin the period of hiding at Witte Singel 80 in Leiden. After the war end shortly with Sitters at the attic at Amstellaan 13, in the Theophil de Bockstraat 27, Eemstraat 24 3rd floor, Sarphatiepark 691st floor, Arntzeniusweg 110 parterre and since the early years of 1990 at Rondeel 135, a service flat of Beth Shalom. She passed away 29 December 2005 in the nursing house of Beth Shalom at Akerwateringstraat in Amsterdam-Osdorp,
The content of this story was told by Juliette herself in the years 1990-2000 and has been edited and place on the website of Joods Monument by the editors on 15 April 2020.