Max Cardozo is a child of the Holocaust and lived in Nazi-occupied Holland. He published a book about his experiences, “A Child Underground” in both English and Dutch, in 2006. Six couples assisted him during that time and have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem during the last couple of years. Those people will be recognized again in a ceremony in the Netherlands Nov. 15.
The story begins when Cardozo was born in 1937 and lived with his parents, Maurits and Anna (née Gompers), in Amsterdam. With them was Ido Fortuin, born in 1929, who Maurits and Anna raised and Max considers a brother. Maurits was a textile merchant, who traveled around the villages surrounding the city selling his merchandise. One of his clients was Adrianus (Arie) Broers. With the ever increasing anti-Jewish measures, Broers told Maurits that he could count on his help if ever his family would be in danger.
In the summer of 1942, with the start of the deportations of the Dutch Jews to the camps in the East, Maurits indeed turned to Broers who stood by his promise. Arie and Anna Broers took the family under their wings throughout the war. First, Arie managed to get false identity papers for Maurits and Anna Cardozo. From there he started searching for hiding addresses for all the Cardozos.
Max Cardozo told The Chronicle in 2006 that when the family was forced into hiding originally, the family of four stayed together. Soon, however, the family had to split up. By the time the Germans withdrew from Holland on May 9, 1945, Max Cardozo had changed hiding places six times, having been helped by five families (one twice). Max’s brother, Ido, who is eight years older than Max, moved more than 20 times during that three-year period. All four Cordozos survived and were reunited at the end of the war.
Max Cardozo is thrilled that those who helped him are getting the recognition they deserve.
“This is a great prestige in today’s Europe where there is big trouble,” he said.
He is even more thrilled that 22 primary schools in the Netherlands are now using his book as part of its curriculum to teach the Holocaust to their students.
Cardozo, a retired businessman who ran several businesses in the Kansas City area including Papa Chen’s Express and the five-store chain of flower shops called Roses Only, is ready to publish a second book this spring about his life tentatively titled either “Do Not Repeat Catastrophe” or “My Glass is Full.” He originally moved to the United States in 1955, living in the United States and other places around the world for the next 50 years. He came back to Kansas City full-time in 2005 to be near his family.
Part of his experience was recently reported in an article, originally published in a newspaper in Medemblik, Netherlands, and translated by Cardozo, about how children are learning about the Holocaust in preparation for the Dutch recognition ceremony next week.
The Dutch article points out that at least one of Cardozo’s rescuers did not discuss the Nazi resistance much and for years said almost nothing about his family’s role in hiding Cardozo.
“My grandfather (Reijer Keijzer) told my father, Dirk Keijzer, never much about the war in hiding and help his parents, sister Grietje and he gave to a Jewish boy,” Ingrid Keijzer was quoted as saying in the newspaper. Cardozo’s story is part of what she discusses when she gives classroom presentations to school children.
In the Netherlands, school children are told that rescuers came from all walks of life: farmers, growers, artisans, shopkeepers, workers, teachers and doctors. And all risked their lives and their families. The children also learned about the Germans compelling all people of Jewish descent to wear the yellow star in 1942.
Cardozo would like more schools and universities to use his book so that young people can understand what happened. He is worried that a Holocaust can happen again.
“I’m deathly afraid that in 2030 this will be repeated,” he said in a 2006 interview.