For most of his life, San Francisco psychiatrist H. Thomas Stein had no intention of honoring the Dutch farmers who risked their lives to save his during World War II.
“I had very mixed feelings about this family,” he said. “There was nothing loving or affectionate about them. I did not have good memories.”
But recently, at the age of 74, Stein returned to his native Holland for a ceremony posthumously honoring the Dutch couple.
After much thought, he concluded that Lambertus and Anna Litjens were no less nice to him than they were to each other; they were miserably poor and unhappy, and affection was something they just weren’t familiar with.
“I realized I should put my personal feelings aside,” he said. “They did save my life. At great risk to theirs, they did it anyway.”
So Stein, along with his wife, daughter and granddaughter, traveled to Amsterdam, where Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Israel, named the couple “Righteous Gentiles” for saving a Jew. The ceremony took place at the Dutch Resistance Museum.
The couple’s five daughters accepted the award on their deceased parents’ behalf.
When Stein was 12, he was taken away from his family by the Dutch underground and placed with the Litjens family.
Lambertus Litjens was eager to take him, because with only daughters, he thought he could use the help on the farm. Anna Litjens went along with her husband, though the fact that she was less happy about the arrangement was obvious.
“I lived on that farm for 15 months,” said Stein, describing how he shared a bed with a hired farmhand.
While Stein thought the family had been told he was an orphan who lost his parents in the bombing of Rotterdam, they knew from the outset that he was Jewish. He thought he had to hide his religion from them, and only found out years later that they knew all along.
Stein had several close calls while living with the Litjens, and at times had to sleep in the forest.
“I was frightened most of the time,” he said.
Amazingly, both his brothers and his parents survived the war. Stein decided to come to the United States, where he married, raised a family and became a
psychiatrist. He mostly kept his wartime past buried, until he attended a conference for hidden children in New York in 1991. That was a watershed moment for him, in that his children began asking him questions.
Two years ago, he took his grandson, Josh Miller, 14, and his daughter, Ellen Stein, both of San Francisco, to Holland with him. Miller brought along his video camera, and Stein was reunited with all the Litjens sisters, the first time he had seen them all since the war.
Miller had lots of questions for them, and his grandpa served as translator.
“I went when I was the same age as my grandpa when he went into hiding,” said Miller. “I was trying to imagine myself in that situation, but it was very hard. The survivors are not going to be around soon, so I’m really glad I had that experience when not a lot of people will.”
Stein’s 13-year-old granddaughter, Emma Miller, accompanied him this time for the ceremony at the Dutch Resistance Museum.
“It was really cool,” she said. “It felt really special because it really meant a lot to him. I felt honored to be there.”
Stein said that he is glad he chose to honor the couple, not so much for himself, but for their five daughters.
“I didn’t realize it was such a big issue for them,” he said. “They still can’t stop talking about it. It was an incredible experience for them.”