Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen

Born:
19 June 1942, Rotterdam
Interview:
28 October 2009

"Adoption: a life in adaptation"

Spoken language: Dutch

Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen was a baby of four months when her parents put her into hiding. Through an intermediary Ellen found a home with the family of teacher Van der Spiegel. Both her parents were killed in Sobibor. Nobody from her father's side - out of a large family of over eighty - survived the war; two aunts from her mother's side did, but most sisters and brothers of her mother were killed in Sobibor too, as well as a niece and a nephew. All four of her grandparents perished in Auschwitz. Ellen has always kept the clothes in which her mother dressed her before handing her over.

Ellen was raised as a Christian and for a long time thought she was the only Jewish orphan in the world. At a later age she got more and more interested in her Jewish background and got into closer touch with her relatives, also in Israel. Her family name combines the name of her foster parents and the name of her father. Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen worked, among other things, as a psychologist.

In this interview is talked about:

  • Jewish life

    Which Jewish customs and traditions are referred to by the interviewees? Did they observe Jewish holidays before the Second World War? What role does their Jewishness play now? This section deals with Jewish life in the Netherlands and Poland.

    Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen is grateful to her caring war foster parents, who adopted her afterwards. Still, she experienced her childhood as a hard time, as she was aware of her double identity. She regards herself as an example of the struggle for the Jewish war child. At a later age Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen went to research her past in hiding and her Jewish background more intentionally. She tightened the bonds with her Jewish family and became a member of Sjalhomo foudation.

  • In hiding

    Part of the interviewees survived the war in hiding. Members of this group were in hiding with a non-Jewish foster family in the Netherlands as a baby or infant. A number of those surviving Sobibor found a hiding place in Poland after the revolt.

    Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen's parents had their daughter go into hiding when she was a baby. They didn't go into hiding themselves as they thought they would be strong enough to get through the labour camps. Ellen was taken in by a childless, slightly elderly couple that lived close to her parents (who, presumably, didn't know about their daughter's whereabouts at all). One day, when her foster mother made a stroll with Ellen, the perambulator was recognized by Ellen's mother; Ellen heard this story much later from Bep Liesveld, who acted as an intermediary at the time. Everything Ellen knows about her parents and relatives she has learnt from others; she was too young herself to have recollections of her parents, whose only child she was. In her possession are her birth certificate and the reception book from her parents' marriage.

  • Life after the war

    How did it feel when many did not return after the war? Interviewees recollect how they resumed their lives, shaped by such huge losses.

    Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen's war foster parents adopted her and gave her a Christian upbringing. Ellen's first memory is about a parcel she received for "Elsje Cohen" at Khanuka/Christmas when she was about six years old. At that moment she was confronted with the fact that her real parents were no longer there for the first time. She was a fearful child, being raised Jewish and Christian at the same time: she attended Jewish lessons, but Sunday school as well. Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen is grateful to her caring foster parents, but still experienced her childhood as difficult. She regards herself as an example of the struggle for Jewish children after the war.

  • Rebuilding lives

    So many people, so many different lives. Each of the interviewees have their own way of coping with the enormous loss that bears the name of Sobibor.

    Thanks to her foster parents Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen was able to get a higher education than would have been the case otherwise. She read Dutch language and litterature and worked as a journalist and as a psychologist in a rehabilitation centre. For a long time she was in search of her Jewish roots. She met her future husband as a student and moved to the Southern part of the Netherlands with him. Ellen got absorbed in her Jewish background more and more and tightened the bonds with relatives, in Israel as well, at a later age.

  • Consequences of Sobibor

    Interviewees lost loved ones and relatives in Sobibor. Here they talk freely about the role these losses still play in their lives.

    Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen has had a feeling of insecurity and non-belonging for her whole life. Sorrow, the loss of a family of her own, but also her anger are great. "I have imagined very often how it must have been for my mother, this moment that I was taken away, that she handed her baby, so small, her first-born, over to strangers." Ellen was brought into hiding with a foster family as a small baby. Her parents were murdered in Sobibor. Their horrible death has caused great grief to Ellen. Perhaps her whole life has been a quest for her Jewish roots. When placing a stone in Sobibor in 2007 she said Kaddish for her parents and read aloud two poems of her own hand.

  • Demjanjuk trial

    Next of kin to people killed in Sobibor, and survivors of the revolt played a major role as co-plaintiffs during the Demjanjuk trial.

    Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen feels that justice should be done in the name of her family and all others who were murdered. She is glad that thanks to this trial the history of the Shoah is being paid due attention again. If the accused is found guilty, he deserves to be punished.