Max and Eugenie Obler

This was written by Max's granddaughter:  My grandparents thought that they were really safe in Holland and that is why they had come to join their daughter [Charlotte]. But seeing that she was not coming back, the Dutch thought it wise to hide them in Sneek. It was very difficult to convince my grandfather, shouting that he was no criminal who must hide, that he even had a diploma from the army, that he wasn’t in danger, etc. Finally, it was the police themselves who forced him to hide in the home of a cheese shopkeeper. They were hidden in a cupboard under the stairs and ordered to silence so the neighbors could not hear them.   There was less and less food and the Dutch shared the little they had, up to potato peelings. Two weeks before the war ended, grandfather dies at 69 of tuberculosis. “I know I am dying and I thank you for all you have endured and done for me” where his last words to his wife. Transported dead to hospital, thanks to an obliging doctor, he was taken for a Dutch Christian farmer and buried in a Christian cemetery. A few months after the war, an orthodox Jew had him buried in the Jewish cemetery of Sneek. Later, the Red Cross informed my parents in Beirut that Grandmother was still alive. After many administrative procedures, she could finally join them.