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 The sight of a person in uniform still frightens Sieny Cohen.
Last fall, Cohen and her husband, Harry, came from Amsterdam to FSU's
Appleton Museum in Ocala to tell how they hid Jewish children in World War II.
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"It was an episode which always was, and will be, the most important in our
lives," said Mrs. Cohen, 72. "It is a story that should be told before it is too
late."
Sieny Kattenburg (at 16, not yet married to Harry Cohen) was working in a
nursery for Jewish children in Amsterdam when the Nazi's sent most of the Jewish
employees to a concentration camp. She was one of three Jews allowed to stay.
The children at the nursery had been arrested for being Jewish. Their parents
were held across the street in an old theater.
Avenues once bustling with Jewish life became "ghost streets," Mrs. Cohen
said. Only German police remained.
As her fears grew, she asked parents to let her take the the children to
hideouts. Some said no Ñ they wanted their children with them, whatever the
destiny. Many said yes.
When the parents were going to be deported, Kattenburg would give them dolls
wrapped in blankets to carry away, and send their real children to hiding places.
In 1943, Kattenburg met Harry Cohen, who had lost his family's business to
gentiles. They began working together to hide children.
It was often dangerous. Sometimes she would take long walks with five or six
children and come back with only three or four.
One day two German officers came to the nursery for a count. She
knew she would be found out if they came in. She said, "The children are
sleeping.; you should be ashamed of yourselves."
The Germans paused, mumbled harsh words to her, and left. It was the first
time since the war began that she felt fear, she said.
She had other close calls.
She and Cohen were married in1943, in a department store (Jews were banned
from public buildings, which had signs, "No Jews or dogs.")
Soon after the Cohens were married, the Germans came to the nursery for Mrs.
Cohen. When they took her away, she assumed she was going to die. But they
brought her back. She says she has never since looked at a uniform without fear.
The Cohens fled soon after to a hideout in the country. The next day everyone
in the nursery and the theater went to concentration camps. "If we would have
waited one more night, we would have been deported," Mr. Cohen said.
Their first hideout was a houseboat, where they lived with a Dutch family and
a goat, which would defecate insidede.
Later, members of the Resistance took them to a small cellar, which they
shared with nine other Jews for 20 months.
The day after the war ended, Sieny and Harry borrowed bicycles, without
tires, and rode to Amsterdam. They learned that most of their family had died in
concentration camps.
Now, Mrs. Cohen said, she talks about her war-time experiences because she
wants to change the way people look at other cultures.
"I feel sorry that very young children do not learn foreign languages and
psychology because if they got a feeling of another culture's psychology, how
could they hurt those people?" she said. "We should concentrate on how we can
prevent hurting other people. That is very important."
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