De Kadt family life

Samuel and Margaretha Swaap surreptitiously found hiding places for their grandchildren, Wilhelmina (age 2) and Maarten (age 8 months) in August 1942. The children's parents, Louis de Kadt, 29 (born May 13, 1913), and Sonja Rita de Kadt-Swaap, 22 (born October 8, 1919), were murdered in Auschwitz on August 10, 1942. They were rounded up from their home in Amsterdam, forced to gather in the Hollandsche Schouwburg theater, and deported to the transit camp Westerbork, and later to Auschwitz. Wilhelmina lived outside Amsterdam in hiding with a devout Catholic family called van der Zijden, while Maarten was housed by a Protestant couple nearby. Wilhelmina says, "We weren't far apart. I was able to visit my brother occasionally, but I didn't know he was my brother. I thought he was just a friend." Samuel and Margaretha Swaap were deported from Westerbork to Bergen Belsen on May 19, 1944; Samuel died there in February 1945. Margaretha was freed from the camp but hospitalized for two months as she recovered from deprivation-related illnesses. At 52, she immigrated to New York with the children and reunited with her surviving daughter. Margaretha retrieved the family's possessions, including these films. Sonja de Kadt feeds a bottle to the baby laying across her lap, while a dog looks on; the woman holds Willie's arm up to wave to the camera, shows her various toys, and puts her finger in her mouth to show off the first teeth; 01:01:25 Willie walks with her mother's help, and is fed; 01:04:51 an older woman, probaby best friend Kees van Wyck's wife, holding her baby daughter; mother Sonja de Kadt holds Willie in winter 1940-1941; 01:07:35 mother Sonja pushes Willie outdoors in a stroller in front of the family's home in Schoorl, Netherlands; 01:12:02 Father Louis de Kadt walks slowly toward the camera down the lane in front of their home; 01:12:41 Family shots outdoors; Willie learns to walk on the grass in front of her house, with help from her mother and her grandfather; 01:15:03 Willie eats and plays with toys in her crib; pushes her stroller down the lane; walks with father Louis in the garden; in the garden with mother Sonja, father Louis, and several other adults, including Margaretha and Samuel Swaap.