Before the war, Matja Groonheim-Stad worked as a teacher at the Gemeentelijk Lyceum [grammar school] in Doetinchem. In late 1940, she was dismissed by order of the German occupiers, because she was a Jewish woman. In 1943 the counsellor Justus Mogendorff arranged a job for her at the internment camp Villa Bouchina. She tutored the three children who were staying there.
Addition of a visitor of the website
For additional information (in Dutch), see the website on Villa Bouchina.