This is the story of eight people — all of whom loved a little boy, and each of whom did their bit to keep him alive and raise him to manhood. And it’s also the story of that little boy now grown old with a passion to share his beautiful story, and of an institution determined to keep this love story alive for all to hear.
Anne Frank may have been looking out the window of her family’s Amsterdam hiding place at the moment on Aug. 13, 1943, when, in a hospital across town, a son was born to Martha van Cleef Fritz. A year later, Anne and her family would be turned in to the Nazis and sent to Bergen-Belsen, where the 15-year-old would succumb to starvation and illness just months before liberation.
That summer, the Jews of Holland were already banned from riding buses, owning businesses and shopping in certain stores, but now they were being deported to death camps. With her husband, Ziegfried Fritz, in hiding with the Dutch resistance, Martha knew that her newborn son had one chance of survival: her friends next door, Max and Jacqueline Meents, a childless couple who raised him as Ernst Bernard van Coevorden.
We can only imagine what it would be like to give birth to a son and love him so much that you are willing to part with him. But, by all reports, Jacqueline was no ordinary foster mother. From the start, she began documenting baby Ernst’s early years and milestones in photos and journal entries, including a photograph of his first smile and a lock of his hair dated April 5, 1944. Through these pages, she conveyed not only love for this baby but her hope to present these keepsakes to his parents upon their return, as well as her worries over her husband, Max. Though she was a Christian, he was a Jew in hiding.
After the war, when his parents’ tragic ends were confirmed — Martha is known to have died in Auschwitz, but the details of her husband’s end are unknown — the boy’s paternal uncle, Yehuda Shimoni, came to claim him. A prolonged custody battle followed that ended after Jacqueline’s death, when the court ruled in favor of the uncle who took the 4-year-old to Israel and Kibbutz Naan.
There, he was raised by his paternal aunt Adina Kochba and her husband, Uri. The child went from Ernst to Efraim, taking their last name and growing up as a brother to their sons.
In fact, he never knew of his remarkable beginnings until his bar mitzvah, when his aunt and uncle sat him down and told him that he was not their son but their nephew, and how he came to be saved and delivered to them nine years earlier.
In his 20s, Kochba returned to Holland for the first time since his uncle came in 1947 to take him to Israel. He went there to meet his foster father, Max, who had survived the war.
And that father figure gave the young man a gift: the three photo albums and diary created by his late wife, who had painstakingly recorded the child’s infancy and toddlerhood, a time in his life he has no memory of today.
And in 2024, Kochba made the decision to donate them to Yad Vashem through its “Gathering the Fragments” program.
Since 2011, more than 400,000 items have been collected, including 550,000 photographs, 190 million pages of archival documentation, 30,000 artifacts, postcards, letters and jewelry, as well as some 15,000 works of art.
“But there is something about the love his foster mother felt for him that is especially touching,” says Orit Noiman, who runs the collection. “Since those who were babies or small children in the Holocaust don’t remember those years, Jacqueline’s albums and journal tell us what it was like to be raising this baby during those terrible times.”
‘Touch hearts, inform minds’
And now these Holocaust stories are being shared as works of theater.
Yad Vashem has opened “Touching Memory Theater,” a new project that brings Holocaust remembrance to the stage. Drawing from testimonies, artifacts and histories housed in Yad Vashem’s Mount of Remembrance, the performances bring these stories to three-dimensional life.
Each play — so far, four are being performed in rotation — weaves together the voices of the victims and survivors illustrating their courage and resilience in impossible situations. Two of them are performed in both Hebrew and English: “Bear and the Toy Underground,” suitable for audiences ages 10 and up, and “Leo Haas: Painter of Truth and Lies,” for those 16 and up.
“Touching Memories” is another step forward in commemorating the Holocaust,” says Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan. “This theater breathes life into items and testimonies that have been carefully preserved within Yad Vashem’s collections, marking the beginning of a new era in Holocaust remembrance — one in which no survivors remain to share their stories firsthand.”
He said the goal is that “this initiative will touch hearts, inform minds and ensure that the lessons of the Shoah are passed on to generations to come.”
‘A small spark to ignite it’
Though young Efraim was saved by the efforts of so many who loved him, his mother’s worst fears were realized.
After making sure her newborn was safe, Martha joined her husband Ziegfried in hiding in Utrecht as part of the Dutch resistance. In 1944, they were arrested and deported to Westerbork, the Nazi transit camp in Holland and then to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.
Kibbutz Naan remains Kochba’s home more than seven decades after being brought there as a 4-year-old Dutch-speaking orphan. It’s where he married Ruthie. Where they raised their four sons. (Their grandchild count currently stands at 13.) Where the front lawn of the home they’ve lived in for more than half a century is populated with dozens of Ruthie’s whimsical sculptures.
At 82, Kochba knows the tale of his dramatic childhood remains alive through the photo albums and diary on display in the theater and the play (“Bear and the Toy Underground”) that was inspired in part by his story. And he is also determined to keep sharing his miraculous rescue with groups who visit the kibbutz to hear it from him directly, especially school children and soldiers. “What happened to me can give them strength,” he says.
In addition, the books’ ancient paper was faded and beginning to tear, so Yad Vashem’s conservation process has given them what wife Ruthie calls “the ability to continue telling their story for generations.”
And, in today’s atmosphere of global antisemitism, is there a vital lesson to be learned from his story?
“It’s a very natural connection,” says Kochba. “Antisemitism is always under the surface, and all that’s needed throughout Jewish history is a small spark to ignite it. My story and others like it can help. Whether you hear it from me or in the play, you will never forget what antisemitism can lead to if not stopped.”
To find out more about Yad Vashem’s “Gathering the Fragments” program, email: [email protected]. For a theater schedule and reservations in English, visit yadvashem.org.
