07 Aug Dieren, Johanneshof
Address: Zutphensestraatweg 40, Dieren
The building was a children’s home, owned by the Louisa Foundation of Dieren. The group of children arrived here on July 1, 1939.
Vera Pick writes to her parents on July 7:
We are very well here, and we can work in the garden every day, we also pick fruit without eating. Furthermore we are allowed to go swimming twice a week, in the bath are two sections – one for non-swimmers with a barrel in the water and a section for swimmers. There is a 3 m high diving board, from which I jumped several times. The whole bath is on the IJssel. The arrangement is like this: Wednesday the girls 11-12 go swimming. Thursday the big boys, and Friday the little ones, if the weather is good. There is a swing here where two can swing at the same time, Dolly and Herbert are swinging half the day. (29)
On May 10th, 1940, the children were evacuated to Loenen, and came back on Sunday the 12th. On May 29th it was decided that these children were to be housed with foster parents, and in August, 1940, it was closed on orders of the occupying German forces. Some of the children went back to their parents in Germany or Vienna, some 17 were placed with foster families.
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29. Vera Pick, letter to her parents in Vienna, July 7, 1939