Maud Dahme was born in January 1936 in Amersfoort, the Netherlands. Her mother came from Germany where she met her father. They fell in love and her mother became a Dutch citizen. Her grandfather was a cantor at the synagogue. Her father studied to be a chef. Her Dutch grandfather had a restaurant and kiosks in train stations. Her mother stayed home with her and her sister Rita. They lived near the train station in a residential area. She has no real memories of before the war, except for the day they went into hiding. She was six and a half years old. The war started and her town was being bombed heavily. Her parents were summoned to the synagogue. The rabbi read a letter from the German command. Doctor Arthur Seyss-Inquart, an Austrian Nazi, was made commandant by Hitler. He wrote a letter telling the Jews to go to the train station with suitcases containing clothes. Her parents wondered what this was about. They stopped at the home of some Christian friends even though it was now illegal to do so. They snuck in. The friend [Annotator's Note: Kees van Zwol] told them he was with the Resistance and for them not to go on the trains. He said the Resistance had found Christian families that would hide Jewish children. He needed to know if they would send their children away. Her parents agreed. Dahme remembers her mother packing them suitcases and telling her that they were going on vacation to a farm. They rode tricycles to the house picked for them. Her father said he would see them in a couple of weeks. They walked into Jan Kanis's [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] house, had dinner and went to bed. About two or three o'clock in the morning, they were awakened and taken to a train. Dahme was no longer wearing her star [Annotator's Note: identifying her Jewish]. She remembers walking through the woods and picking blueberries. They then took a train to a farm. A couple of years ago [Annotator's Note: from the time of the interview], Dahme met two of the man's daughters and they told her their father had told them stories of her picking blueberries.

[Annotator's Note: Maud Dahme and her sister were sent to a Christian family's farm to hide from the Nazis.] They arrived at the farm in Oldebroek [Annotator's Note: Oldebroek, Netherlands]. All the farms were along the main highway. There was a lot of traffic with German trucks, German soldiers walking around everywhere, and guns set up to shoot at airplanes. The couple that took them in were in their sixties and had no children. This part of Holland had very religious evangelists. It was confusing. The couple told them they were going to play hide-and-go-seek. They had her and her sister hide in the wheat field. They gave her an umbrella and told her to stay in there until they told them to come out. Her sister started crying for their mother. It started raining and Dahme held the umbrella up over the wheat. The couple took them into the house then. It was very primitive. There was no running water and no beds. The first evening some relatives came over to meet the two girls. Dahme was proud of the fact that she wore a star with "jood" on it. For her it meant she was a grown up. The couple then sat her down and explained why the girls were there. They told her that they were now their aunt and uncle. The girls were now their nieces who had been orphaned in a bombing. They could not go to school or tell anyone who they are or where they came from. They had to assume their name of Spronk [Annotator's Note: Henrik and Kobameuje (Tannie)]. Her name was now Margie Spronk. She was not allowed outside until she remembered it. She was also told that if she messed up, the soldiers would come and take them all away.

[Annotator's Note: Maud Dahme and her sister were sent to a Christian family's farm to hide from the Nazis.] The couple was very religious. Every night they prayed and every night Dahme prayed that she would live another day. One day, she and her sister went to a different farm. When they returned, something seemed different. The couple showed them where they stored wood and showed them a trap door hidden underneath. There was a young Jewish boy hiding there. They covered it all and asked her to make him something to eat once a day and be careful that no one saw her. She was now seven. She went down to take him food one day and when she came out, there were German soldiers there. She pretended they were not there. She put the trap door down and put the wood over the door. She was sure she was going to be shot but nothing happened. The couple said they had to move the boy immediately and that is when Dahme started feeling fear. She thought it was her fault if they returned. No one ever came back. As she got older, she realized these were soldiers who had been drafted and probably had children of their own. So, there was some goodness in all the madness. The boy was moved. After the war, Dahme found out what happened with him. One day after church they visited some relatives. Dahme and her sister were surprised to see their kindergarten teacher hiding there. Many years after war, she found out someone had revealed their hiding place. Many Dutch were collaborating as there were rewards. The Germans took the teacher, her husband, and the son of the couple who hid them to Zwolle [Annotator's Note: Zwolle, the Netherlands]. The son was let go but the others were to go to the Westerbork transit camp [Annotator's Note: Drenthe Province, Netherlands] but instead, Dutch Nazis took them to dig their own graves and then killed them. The Germans made the Dutch dig them up and put the bodies on a train to Bergen-Belsen [Annotator's Note: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Bergen, Germany] where they were dumped in a mass grave. The Germans kept accurate records.

[Annotator's Note: Maud Dahme and her sister were hiding from the Nazis on a farm in Oldebroek, Netherlands.] They stayed on the farm. Dahme's uncle fell down and died of a heart attack at her feet on 20 January 1944. They had come to the farm in the summer of 1942. He was buried on her birthday. The Resistance came and told the widow she could not run the farm and that the girls should be moved. She said no. Her nephew came and ran the farm. One day some strangers came in and told them they were leaving right then. This was just after Christmas 1944. They were moved to some different families. They had been discovered. They were moved to a fishing village called Elburg [Annotator's Note: Elburg, the Netherlands] to another family, the Westerinks. They had a daughter about 19. Nobody was going to school anymore. They spoke the dialect, so they blended in well. The people held church services in their attic. It was a very difficult time. There was nothing to eat at the time. It was called the Hunger Winter [Annotator's Note: Hongerwinter, or Dutch famine of 1944 to 1945]. The father of the family was a fisherman. The fish was eel. They ate eel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She and her sister were walking one day to get some food, and the Allies started a bombing mission. They laid down for cover. They returned without food. People were eating tulip bulbs.

[Annotator's Note: Maud Dahme and her sister were hiding from the Nazis with a Christian family in Elburg, Netherlands.] It was very hard for her because she had a responsibility for her sister. She knew what could happen to them. She had nightmares. There was no electricity and the windows had to be covered at night. It was a very scary time. 1945. People had radios now that they were not allowed to have. They would listen to Radio Oranje [Annotator's Note: Dutch program of the British Broadcasting Corporation European Service] out of England. In the summer of 1944, she was told of the invasion in France. Everybody got so excited. Belgium and the lower Netherlands were freed. They were north and not free. She learned that Canadian soldiers had broken through and on 19 April 1945 she was told the village before them had been freed. The Germans left their village. They put out flags and orange things, but the Germans came back. They were shooting at everyone and everything. The Germans left again. She was told the soldiers were coming in and Dahme could see them. Suddenly a truck came in with men in blue coveralls. She found out years later they were Dutch resistance fighters. The Allies gave them the honor of taking the village. The tanks came in next. [Annotator's Note: Dahme gets emotional.] They were free. One of the soldiers threw a chocolate bar to her. She did not know what it was. Dahme named her book, "Chocolate: the Taste of Freedom".

[Annotator's Note: Maud Dahme and her sister were hiding from the Nazis with a Christian family in Elburg, Netherlands when it was liberated April 1945.] The resistance [Annotator's Note: Dutch resistance] decided they should go back to the farm and wait to see if their parents were free [Annotator's Note: the first farm they had been hidden at in Oldebroek, Netherlands in 1942]. Dahme did not remember her parents. She remembers standing in the pump room. The door was open, and a man and a woman were standing in the doorway. She did not know who they were. It was her mother and father. She shook their hand and ran back. It must have been heartbreaking for her parents. They stayed on the farm for a couple of weeks. Dahme was now nine years old. She told her parents they would go home with them but if they did not like them, they would return to the farm. The Germans had blown up the bridges during their retreat. The only thing moving were trucks with food. Everyone was starving. After the girls had left [Annotator's Note: in 1942], her parents had nowhere to go. People were asking about the girls and they told them about them going into hiding. The Jews had to register when the Germans invaded. Some friends told them to stay with them. They owned a car dealership with a self-standing building, and they lived in the apartment above it. Two German officers lived in the apartment. Her parents lived in the attic for three years. Her father never went outside because he was well known and men his age were sent to work in factories. Her mother was new to the town and acted as a nurse. They never suspected her. It was a miracle they survived. In January 1944, Dahme had sent a letter to her via the resistance. That letter is at the museum in Washington D.C. [Annotator's Note: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum].

[Annotator's Note: Maud Dahme and her sister were reunited with their parents in April 1945 after hiding from the Nazis with Christian families in the Netherlands since 1942.] They went home but it was very difficult. Their neighborhood was a mess because the train station had been bombed constantly but they were not accurate. Their house had been bombed. People had also taken all of the wood in the house to use as firewood. There were no floors. They lived in an upstairs bedroom. They had nothing to cook with so the Canadians set up a soup kitchen. Her mother went there three times a day for food. Her parents were wondering where the rest of the family was. No one was there. Her mother was told by the Dutch Red Cross that her parents perished in Sobibor [Annotator's Note: extermination camp in German occupied Poland]. Her Dutch grandmother had been in the hospital before the girls had gone into hiding. Her grandfather had been told to go to the train station. The Jews were being taken to Amsterdam [Annotator's Note: Amsterdam, Netherlands] to the Jewish quarter. He convinced the Germans to let him hire an ambulance to take her. She died there and he ended up in Sobibor. His father's sister was married and had three children. They were all taken to Sobibor, a death camp. Very few people survived Sobibor.

[Annotator’s Note: Maud Dahme and her sister were reunited with their parents in April 1945 after hiding from the Nazis with Christian families in the Netherlands since 1942]. Life afterwards was hard. Her father wanted to take over the restaurant that was theirs before the war. A Dutch Nazi had taken it over. Now they had no proof that it was theirs. Her father took a job with the Dutch government. They only had the clothes on their backs. A department store wanted to set up a coffee shop and they offered it to her father. He opened a kiosk and they slowly rebuilt their lives. Dahme was 9 and a half years old and started the first grade. Her behavior was erratic, and she had a nervous breakdown in 1946. The cure was to lie in bed for three months. Her father was able to buy an import company for material for clothes and decided to move to Amsterdam [Annotator’s Note: Netherlands]. This was 1947 or 1948. They lived in an apartment house. Some of her mother’s relatives from Germany left there before the war. They found out they had survived and in 1949, they asked if they wanted to come to the United States. They decided to start over in a whole new environment. Dahme was 14 and had to do things on her own.

Maud Dahme and her family traveled to America by ship [Annotator's Note: from the Netherlands]. She remembers seeing land and wondering where the skyscrapers were. They then came around and saw Manhattan [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. They arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey. It did not bother her to leave everything behind. It was an adventure and it never scared her. Their relatives were physicians. Her parents rented a room for them. Her father was working in Asheville, North Carolina in a hotel. They stayed in one room with a shared kitchen and bathroom in a rooming house. Her father returned because he did not like the South. He became a busboy. Her mother got a job as a companion to a pregnant Dutch woman. They moved into an apartment and Dahme started school again. She could not speak one word of English and was put into the fourth grade. She had been in the sixth grade. Her parents refused to speak Dutch. They only would speak English to help her learn. During the summer, she and her sister would go to the movies and stay all day. This helped them speak English. She was later moved to high school. Her friends made her learn a new English word every day.

Maud Dahme's parents did not want to know what had happened to her during the years she and her sister were gone from them [Annotator's Note: they had gone into hiding in the Netherlands with different families in 1942 and were reunited in 1945]. It was behind them. They died without knowing anything. Things had happened to her and her sister that she has still not come to terms with. They never asked and they never told them about what happened to them. She found out from the Shoah Foundation interview her mother did [Annotator's Note: USC Shoah Foundation: The Institute for Visual History and Education; formerly Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation]. It was common. So many Holocaust survivor's children do not know. Society was very closed and life had to go on. They were not going to dwell on the past. Her children know exactly what happened to her, although she never talked about it before 1981. What prompted Dahme was the fact that she watched a television show on Raoul Wallenberg [Annotator's Note: Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg]. The following week, a letter that someone had written said that there were no concentration camps and it was all Nazi propaganda. It was signed by someone Dahme knew [Annotator's Note: in America]. Shortly thereafter, Governor Kean [Annotator's Note: Thomas Howard Kean Sr.; 48th Governor of New Jersey] made the Advisory Council on Holocaust Education. Dahme asked to be on the council. The story has to be told. She has told her grandchildren and has spoken to their classes as well. She and her sister were molested during the war, and her parents never knew. This is the first time she has been public about it [Annotator's Note: this interview]. She is just coming to terms with that. It was the Jewish boy who had also been hidden on the farm they were. Her father had asked if he could come with them to America. They said no, but their father never asked them why. It is important to talk about the Holocaust, especially now with so much anti-Semitism. Today sounds like the 1930s when Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] was coming to power. Every group has bad people. There are so many good and righteous people who save lives. Dahme is Jewish, but the people who saved her were Christians. She is a human being. She is involved with migrant and Muslim populations.

Maud Dahme stayed with Christian families and attended church with them during the war [Annotator's Note: she had gone into hiding in the Netherlands with different families in 1942]. She knew she was Jewish but did not know what that really meant. When they came to America after the war, she and her sister wanted to go to church. Their parents let them. She asked them why they did not go to church. She then got very interested and took Hebrew in a synagogue. Her parents would never belong to another synagogue. Many Jews either became very religious or did nothing. Her mother told her she had faith in God, but did not want to be part of a Jewish community. Her mother was angry that she was speaking about her experiences. She felt she was putting her own children at risk. Dahme accepted her mother's reaction. She went to work for Pan American World Airways and fell in love with a non-Jewish, German immigrant. He asked her father for her hand [Annotator's Note: in marriage]. Her parents were upset at first, but realized he had been a child then too and gave their blessing. Dahme has heard that survivors who went through the camps would say they had it bad and the others had it good. That was another reason Dahme did not speak of her experience at first. She did not want to hear that. Even between Holocaust survivors there is jealousy. She has not personally experienced that. Dahme has never heard of any issues between Palestine-born Jews and European-born Jews in Israel. Dahme wants people to really accept everyone. She tells classes this. You might not want them as your best friend, but be kind and accept everyone. Inside, we are all the same. Kids hear a lot from adults. Dahme tries to invite parents to the elementary school classes she speaks to. Adults have pretty much made up their minds. But the kids, just tell them.