Catharina van den Berg

Geslacht:	Vrouw
Vader:	Wouter van den Berg
Moeder:	Barbara Roozendaal
Geboren:	4 Juli 1894	Leiden
Overleden:	14 OKT 1986	onbekend
Religie:		Ned. Hervormd
Aantekeningen:	Last Name: Develing First Name: Catharina Maiden Name: Berg van den Date of Birth: 04/07/1894 Date of death: 14/10/1986 Rescuer's fate: survived Nationality: THE NETHERLANDS Religion: PROTESTANT Gender: Female Place during the war: Leiden, Zuidholland, The Netherlands Rescue Place: Leiden, Zuidholland, The Netherlands Rescue mode: Hiding File number: File from the Collection of the Righteous Among the Nations Department (M.31.2/11433) By the summer of 1942, Ben and Clara Sanders from Amsterdam decided not to wait until they would receive orders to report ‘for work in the East’, but rather to go into hiding. They turned to a friend, Martinus Moolenschot*, originally also from Amsterdam and a building contractor, who had moved to Blaricum (prov. North Holland) at the start of the war in May 1940. The Moolenschots came through and took in the two Sanders children, four-year-old John (b. 9.4.1938) and one-year-old Hans. For the Sanders parents, Moolenschot built a sophisticated hiding place in the Sanders home itself, where they managed to stay during the entire war, while Moolenschot took care of supplying food and other necessities. After a stay of about one year, neighbors of the Moolenschots started to openly doubt the origin of the two boys, and it was considered safer to move them on. For Hans an alternative hiding address was found, but John was taken to his parents’ home in Amsterdam, as no other option seemed possible. However, since he could not stay confined in a small area, he soon had to be taken elsewhere. In the fall of 1943, John was taken to the home of Catharina Develing through the intervention of an underground cell. Catharina was a widow with five grown children, who lived close to Leiden (prov. South-Holland). .As John came from an orthodox Jewish family, his parents provided him with some prayers they wanted him to keep on saying, all transliterated into latin characters. And, indeed, Catharina made sure he did so. To the outside world, John was to be the child of relatives, whose father had supposedly been taken off to forced labor in Germany (Arbeitseinsatz) and whose mother was too ill to take care of him. Thus, John could play outside but yet he was not allowed to go school in order to avoid inquiries into his real background as well as rumors among the children. The Develings tried to teach him to read and write at home. The family was devoutly Protestant, but mostly did not take John to church but kept him at home with one of the Develing children. He received much love and felt protected by the Develings, who treated him as a natural member of the family. Even during the infamous Hungerwinter of 1944-1945, when the Germans had cut off the supply of food supply and coal from the eastern parts of the Netherlands, and the western parts were confronted with famine, John was allowed to stay on. He, nonetheless, became very weak and ill, and the family physician suggested giving him an egg every day for some time, which Catharine managed to do so! Until today, John does not understand where she was able to obtain such a food item, while everyone else had to make do with flower bulbs, sugar beets and grass soup! During his entire time in hiding with Catharine, she had John make some drawings for his parents that were transmitted through the underground cell; however, he never saw his parents until the liberation of the area in May 1945. On October 26, 2008, Yad Vashem recognized Catharina Develing as a Righteous Among the Nations.

Gezin 1

Huwelijkspartner:	Willem Develing	geb. 28 Nov 1892 overl. 20 Nov 1935
Huwelijk:	12 OKT 1921	Leiden
Kinderen:
	Willem Develing	geb. 2 MEI 1929
	Barbara Develing	geb. 15 Nov 1922
	Maria Develing	geb. 2 Feb 1924
	Jansje Catharina Develing	geb. 16 Juni 1925
	Catharina Wilhelmina Develing	geb. 17 Juli 1927
	Wouter Develing	geb. 18 Apr 1932