Isa Baschwitz (born Hedwick Gisela B.) was one of Kurt's two daughters. She was born in 1922, which was 11 years prior to Kurt moving his family from Germany to Amsterdam, to escape the Nazi invasion. Like many German families, including Otto Frank's, they believed erroneously they would be safe by crossing into Holland. Isa and her brother Hors became Dutch Resistance Fighters once the Nazi invasion of Holland began. They were both young adults by then, Hors was two years older than Isa.
Kurt Baschwitz was born and raised Jewish, but in 1913 he converted to Christianity, at the age of 31. In those days Jewish people converting to Christianity was often a pretense in hopes of assimilating into the culture they lived among in order to feel more accepted, rather than feeling segregated because of the significant religious differences between Judaism and Christianity. And to prevent more widespread persecution by Christians toward Jews.
As the Holocaust played out it soon became a sham, because even those who had converted were still not immune from being labelled Jewish when the Gestapo gave their orders. All were rounded up, regardless, including Kurt.
Isa and Hors were children of a "mixed marriage," ie, Jewish and Christian. When Isa became a young adult she moved in with Jacques Presser and his wife, so they could help teach her the Jewish customs befitting a young Jewish woman of the late 1930's/early 40's. When the Gestapo swept through Amsterdam rounding up Jewish residents, Jacques wife went out to market one day while they were in hiding, and was caught up in the sweep. She was sent to die in one of the many concentration camps during that time.
It was shortly after that when Jacques went into deep hiding in the Dutch countryside. During that two year span, Isa would bring him books and manuscripts he needed to continue his research and writing.
Isa also helped save her father, Kurt, when he was rounded up by the Gestapo. He was sent to the interim camp near Amsterdam, pending his deportation to a concentration camp. Isa scrambled to obtain real and forged documents that saved her father from certain death!
She and Hans were involved with other rescues of people in their capacity as Dutch Resistance fighters, too numerous to mention.
Isa compiled a book in 1988, a pictorial narration, of her time as a resistance fighter. It was to commemorate the 40th anniversary of her time spent fighting the Nazi invasion of her country, and her people. It was prefaced by the King of Holland, thanking her and the others for their undying devotion to their country.
May 7, 1945 was the day the war ended in Holland. The last battle between the Dutch and German soldiers took place on a train platform in Amsterdam. 17 Germans lay mortally wounded, and two Dutch soldiers on the train platform that day. Hors and Isa were present. Hors was in Dutch uniform, and Isa was dressed in a crisp, white nurse's uniform as part of her disguise. As she marched up and down between the two rows of soldiers telling them to lay down their weapons for the war was now over!
The Germans were nervous and asked her which side was she on? Isa answered them, "The side of peace." She was credited for single-handedly getting the German soldiers to lay down their weapons once and for all who were present on the train platform that day.
Isa had a very colorful personality, according to her family who knew her, all of her life. She was one of the guests who appeared in the documentary of Anne Frank, that was made in 1995 narrated by Glen Close. And it received the Oscar that year for best documentary. Isa had maybe all of several sentences max in that movie. She was reminiscing of the days when her family and Anne Frank's were neighbors and good friends. Their families would spend their Sundays together on many occasions.
Isa passed away in 2002, so I never got to meet her. Yet I feel I know her through the window on her life that shed some light on the person that she was. She, like many others, was one of the heroines of that terrible blight on civilization. She lives on through the many lives that she touched, and those that she saved, including her father Kurt.
