23 Mar 2011

Marcel Hakkens

From Afternoons, 2:11 pm on 23 March 2011

Sixty eight years ago, a Dutch family in Amsterdam risked everything to hide an 18-month-old Jewish girl from the Nazis at the height of World War II. For two and a half years, the Hakkens family hid Elli Szanowski in a cupboard to keep her safe after Nazis killed her father, and her mother fled to Switzerland. Richard and Marcel Hakkens were just little boys when their parents took the child in. After years of searching, the Hakkens found the girl they considered a sister and they were reunited in Wellington.