14 January 24 • 2019
jn

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
E

rwin and Esther Posner traveled 
to the Netherlands in 1976 to 
visit Enschede, the village where 
Christian families had hidden Esther 
(then called Marianne Rose) and her 
family during the Nazi occupation. 
There they met the heroic police officer 
Dick Mos, who, while officially serving 
the Nazi regime, secretly cooperated 
with local Dutch Reformed Minister 
Leendert Overduin to find homes to 

conceal 5-year-old Marianne, her par-
ents, four of her aunts and her grand-
father. 
The Israeli government issues 
a medal for those individuals, the 
Righteous of the Nations, who saved 
Jews during the Holocaust. Each tree 
in a grove at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem 
commemorates a rescuer, who risked 
his or her life and the lives of their fam-
ilies to save Jews from murder. 
Posner learned that Dick Mos and his 
wife, Rie, had not yet been recognized. 
So, she submitted the extensive paper-
work describing their efforts to Yad 
Vashem, the world Holocaust remem-
brance center. 
At the bar mitzvah of Aryeh, the 
Posners’
 eldest son, on Thanksgiving 
Day in 1977, Dick and Rie Mos came 
from Holland to Detroit to join the 
celebration. As Rie Mos remarked, “We 
had to save you because you are Jewish. 
We are glad to see you living your lives 
as Jews.” The rescuers were surprised on 
that occasion to receive the medal for 
the Righteous of the Nations from the 
Israeli government. 
Hiding Jews in Holland took courage 
and ingenuity. During the Nazi occu-
pation, each hiding place could become 
a dangerous trap at any moment. The 
Underground needed contingency 
plans to move concealed people again 
and again. During nearly two years in 
hiding, Marianne had stayed with five 

different families, sometimes with her 
parents, but usually separated from 
them. Two additional families con-
cealed her parents and other relatives. 
Three years ago, Posner discovered 
three of the families had never received 
recognition for their heroic deeds. She 
was determined to gain them that rec-

ognition.
After WWII, Posner’
s parents moved 
to New York. Her mother, Ellen Rose, 
had kept in touch with the families, 
exchanging letters and sending gifts to 
help during those years when the Dutch 
economy failed. Looking through her 
late mother’
s effects, Esther pulled 

together photographs, letters and doc-
uments to prepare applications to Yad 
Vashem to gain recognition for the 
three families. 
Ruth Joaquin of the Dutch desk of 
Yad Vashem replied, thanking Posner 
for the application, but asking, “What 
was the reason that this request was not 
made earlier, for example, with the sub-
missions for the Mos family?”
Posner replied she had been unable 

to locate the families on trips to 
Holland in 1976 and 1992. The Tilsma 
family house was gone, replaced by a 
toy store. The Spit family, “deeply dis-
appointed with the Dutch government’
s 
reaction to the collaborators,” had 
moved to South Africa; Posner’
s parents 
had lost track of them, and also of the 
Morssink family. She hoped “I would be 
able to repair the error of not applying 
earlier.”

SEARCHING FOR OTHERS
Posner could provide extensive infor-
mation about the Spit and Tilsma fam-
ilies, who had hidden her. She did not 
have as much information about Fritz 
and Bep Morssink, who had concealed 
her parents. 
Joaquin of Yad Vashem conducted 
extensive research to locate the missing 
families, contacting historians, examin-
ing the municipal records of Enschede 
and nearby Delden. She succeeded in 
finding an address for the Morssink 
children and sent them letters, but got 
no response, until, on Sept. 6, 2016, 
Joaquin received a letter from Willy 
Morssink, a daughter of the rescuers. 
Born in 1942, she was too young to 
remember much of the war, but she had 
“heard the stories from her parents and 
was witness to the warm correspon-
dence between the two families.” 
Posner had an unexpectedly hard 
time finding another family. Though 

jews d
in 
the
Holocaust Remembrance Day

Fulfilling A Wish

Survivor gains Righteous Among the Nations 
 status for three rescuing families.

Esther Posner and her family with members of the Spit family who hid them during the Holocaust: 

Anne Spit, soldier, her parents Ellen and Fritz Rose, grandfather Rudolf Rose, Spit grandmother, 

soldier, Tante Ulla; seated: Esther Marianne Rose and two Spit sons.

Esther Posner with her 

mother’
s embroidered 

tablecloth that she worked 

on while in hiding in the 

Netherlands during the 

Holocaust. The tablecloth 

was part of an Anne Frank 

exhibit at the Holocaust 

Memorial Center in 2017.

JERRY ZOLYNSKY

continued on page 16