Madeleine Truel: The Peruvian Heroine of World War Two

Madeleine seated front, 3rd from right 

Madeleine Truel was a Peruvian woman of French parentage who fought in the French Resistance as a document forger.

She was captured in 1944 and was tortured to extract information without success, following which she was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin 1945. She died in Stolpe, Germany on 3 May 1945, after being made to walk on a "death march" just a few hours before the Russian troops arrived.

Alexandre Léon Truel and Marguerite Larrabure, were French immigrants who had arrived in Peru in the second half of the 19th century. They had eight children of which Madeleine was the youngest daughter, born on 28 August 1904. Madeleine grew up in the family home located on the old 54 Arequipa street in Lima. Her father managed a hardware store located at 150 Jirón de la Unión. She came from an observant Catholic family and studied at the school San José de Cluny, located on the corner of the Boliva Street and Jiron Washington in downtown Lima. French was spoken in her home and this allowed her to perfect her command of French along with Spanish.

Both of Madeleine Truel's parents died before she was 20 years old. Her mother was the first to pass away from ill health. Then her father died on 6 May 1918, in the clinic Maison de Santé in Lima, due to an infected leg wound which he acquired whilst he was working for the fire brigade putting out a fire at the "El Pergamino" shop. Alexandre Truel was recognized as a hero of Fire Brigade Nº3 and was decorated with a gold medal.

The orphaned Truel children decided to return to France at the request of some family members in Paris in 1924. Madeleine decided to study philosophy at the Sorbonne University. She later found work as an administrative assistant in the first branch of the Spanish Bilbao bank, located on the Rue de Richelieu. She told her workmates anecdotes of her life in Peru, and explained the traditions as well as the current affairs. She also liked to cook traditional Peruvian dishes for her french friends.

In January 1942, Madeleine was knocked over by a Nazi army truck. She was diagnosed with multiple fractures to the cranium and legs and spent about a year in hospital recovering from her terrible injuries. Due to this accident she had a limp that stayed with her for the rest of her days.

The Book Madeleine Wrote

In 1943, she co-wrote the book L'Enfant du Metro  (The Boy of the Subway) along with her sister Lucha. The book narrates a story of a boy who travels through the stations of the Paris subway. The book was dedicated to Pascal, the son of a family of Jewish-Romanian origins who were friends of hers. Her sister Lucha drew the illustrations for the book and Madeleine wrote the text. The publishers were Editions du Chêne. The seemingly innocent story book was Madeleine's covert literary protest at the German occupation of Paris and the persecution of the Jews.

In June 1940 when the German forces had invaded Paris, a married couple - Pierre and Annie Hervé - who were friends of Madeleine introduced her to some members of The French Resistance and very soon she began working in order to help them. Madeleine´s job was to forge documents, especially passports, and travel papers which were delivered to many Jewish fugitives and allied soldiers that had parachuted over the French capital. She used the pseudonym "Marie" when carrying out her resistance work. All the papers, passports and travel documents were forged by hand and she was so good at it, her work was rarely spotted as fake by German soldiers, and subsequently she saved many hundreds of people's lives in this way. 

Documentary on Madeleine

On 19 June 1944, Truel was captured by three German agents when she was picking up ink in one of the resistance's hide-away houses. Days before, a resistance comrade called Annie had been captured and with the information they had gathered from her, the agents set a trap which led directly to Madeleine's capture.

After being arrested she was driven to the SS offices located on the Foch Avenue and then she was temporary transferred to the Fresnes prison.

She was tortured by force for many days by the SS in order  they could uncover more details about the plans and the people of the resistance she was working with - but she refused to co-operate and didn't give away any details. She kept telling them that she assumed all the responsibility for her acts. Her family visited her and the only thing they could leave her was a Bible.

She was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1945. In the concentration camp she lived in a very heroic and charitable manner. She re-distributed the small amount of food that she received, in order to help those who needed it most. 

Gates at Sachsenhausen

She maintained good spirits in spite of all the terrible hardships she suffered at Sachsenhausen  and liked to entertain her fellow prisoners with stories that she remembered about Peru. For this reason she received the affectionate name "Bird of the Isles" from her cell-mates.

As the end of the war drew near, the Soviet army was approaching from the east and the U.S. military from the west. German troops began to become very disorganized and started to flee.

Survivors of the concentration camps were moved in what was to become known as the "Death Marches" in late 1944 and early 1945.

Prisoners at Sachsenhausen

The Death March of prisoners from Sachsenhausen concentration camp to Lübeck, located just over 100 miles away, began on 22 April.

Many prisoners were exhausted by severe malnutrition and the bad living conditions and weather they had been forced to endure - most were not physically fit to march and many were dying along the way.

The purpose of these marches was to hide some of the evidence of the evil brutality suffered in the concentration camps. A German soldier who became impatient with the slowness of the marching prisoners began to beat some of them furiously with a steel rod. One of these victims was Madeleine.

A few hours later the Germans abandoned the marching prisoners and stripped off their uniforms in order to hide from the Russian troops that were now pursuing them. Madeleine lost consciousness and was carried on a stretcher by her fellow prisoners. In spite of her small stature it took six people to do the task because they were all so weak and malnourished themselves. Eventually the group of survivors arrived in a small German town called Stolpe. When she became consciousness again Madeleine complained of suffered a strong headache and a high fever, and then shortly afterwards, she died.

Women Prisoners at Sachsenhausen

The friends who accompanied her to her grave, dressed her in a red dress and sought a Catholic priest to pronounce the funeral prayers, in the confidence that Madeleine would have appreciated that gesture. Before being buried, one of the companions knotted her bracelet with the Star of David on Madeleine’s arm, so that she could later be identified as a victim of the Nazi concentration camp. Another, placed on her chest red and white geraniums in homage to her Peruvian flag and nationality and as a sign of gratitude for how much she had taught them about her country of birth.

In front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, there is a memorial of homage to all the people who were deported from France during World War II, the great majority of names on it are Jewish - but in that long list also appears the name of Madeleine Blanche Pauline Truel Larrabure - one of the few Peruvian heroines of World War Two.

At the end of 1946, a survivor from the concentration camp of who knew Madeleine well, wrote a testimonial article in Le Figaro Newspaper . It is from this article that the story of Madeleine Truel's life and death was uncovered. Over the last 70 years Madeleine's name has almost been forgotten - even by her fellow Peruvians who have never honoured her in any way. 

In Peru, journalist Hugo Coya published the book “Final Station” in 2010, where he tells the story of the Peruvians who died in the Nazi concentration camps. The chapter on Madeleine is the first Peruvian text that claims the merits of this authentic heroine of the twentieth century. It shows us how it is possible to transcend adversity, overcome courageously, find fortitude in misfortune, and fully assume the defense of universal values ​​through solidarity and a faithful respect for human rights.

There has also been a short  Peruvian documentary film made about Madeliene. You can watch both a short English Language clip and a 30 minute documentary on her life below - the second one is narrated in Spanish but you can click on the YouTube subtitles on bottom right of the video player to get English subtitles.

 SHORT CLIP ABOUT MADELEINE

 30 MINUTE PERUVIAN DOCUMENTARY ON MADELEINE

Margaret Bechstein Hays & The Kidnapped "Titanic Orphans"

Margaret Hays

Margaret Bechstein Hays was born in New York city on 6 December 1887 and was a 1st class passenger on the RMS Titanic. She and her dog Bebe survived the ship's sinking, escaping on lifeboat no. 7. Following the disaster, she cared for two small children - known in the press as the "Titanic Orphans" - in her New York City home until their distraught mother came from France and claimed them. It transpired that they had been kidnapped by their father after a marriage breakdown, and all three had been traveling on the Titanic under assumed names, which made it much harder to trace their mother.

Margaret Bechstein Hays was 24 years old when she boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg. She was accompanied by Olive Earnshaw and Lily Potter who occupied first class cabin C-54. Gilbert Tucker, a handsome 31-year-old Cornell University graduate had originally travelled with his parents and sister to Europe, but he left them to head home earlier than planned in order to spend more time with Margaret and join her on the Titanic. He occupied cabin C-53.

When the ship hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912, Margaret Hays and Miss Earnshaw were in their cabin. When the engines stopped they went to Lily Potter's room, and then went off to inquire about the situation. When they returned to Potter's room they told her: "We have hit an iceberg but the steward told us we should not worry and should go back to bed." Although Margaret Hays was not concerned, Lily Potter was scared. They dressed and wrapped Hays' Pomeranian dog in blankets. and headed to C Deck, where Gilbert Tucker helped them collect life jackets.

Bebe - Margaret Hays' Dog

The group then went to the Boat Deck. As Margaret stood waiting and holding her Pomeranian, James Clinch Smith passed by and jokingly commented, "Oh, I suppose we ought to put a life preserve on the little doggie, too."

The three women and the dog boarded lifeboat no. 7, which was the first boat prepared. Lily stepped into the boat first, closely followed by Olive Earnshaw and Margaret Hays, still holding her Pomeranian dog. Little did she know that a few days later she would be caring for two children, whose own tragic story was not yet known

The occupants of boat 7 were rescued early on April 15 by the RMS Carpathia. Also on the Carpathia were two fatherless young boys who spoke only French. Margaret spoke French fluently and was concerned that they would be separated from one another. She volunteered to take the children into her care until their family could be located. The boys played with Bebe, while they were on the boat.

Once the two boys were settled in New York, a newspaper journalist named Nicola Greely-Smith visited the Hays home with the French Consul and interviewed Margaret Hay's father:

"Of all the survivors of the Titanic those two whose impressions would be most worth gathering remain resolutely silent. The two little waifs whose father perished in the disaster and who gained a temporary home with Miss Margaret Hayes, a fellow passenger on the ill fated steamer, they are still at Miss Hayes' home at No. 304 West Eighty Third Street, and not a word have they vouchsafed to anyone as to their names, their relatives or any other matter which might shed a ray of light on their antecedents or identity.

Under the shadow of a giant azalea they sat yesterday afternoon, each with a brand-new boat in hand with which they entertained themselves while the French Consul to New York strove vainly to extract some enlightening word from the elder boy, whose age has been given as three and a half.
To every question the little curly haired chap replied with a polite and baffling "Oui" and said nothing more.

   "Do you like to play with your boat?" asked the Consul, taking the little fellow on his knee.
   "Oui," came the monotonous reply.
   "What city do you come from?"
   "Oui."
   "Do you remember the big boat that brought you away from France?"
   "Oui."

This time the child's assent was rather bored as though he wished to add: "Why do you bother me with questions about that old boat when I have this new shiny, painted, wonderful boat of tin in my hands?"

Probably I am the only person to whom it seemed in the least incongruous that these two babies should be playing with brand new tin boats. The boats obviously delight them and bring back no memory of the night of horror which saw the younger boy tossed naked from the Titanic into a lifeboat while the older boy followed later clad in a flannel shirt.

That the two children are brothers is evident from their striking resemblance to each other. There is said to be a difference of a year in their ages, but I think the older boy is more than three and a half years of age. If not, he is very tall for his years. Both children have unusually beautiful chestnut brown hair which curls in loose ringlets about their heads. Their eyes are dark. Their faces of cherubic plumpness wear that expression of mingled melancholy and mischief so charactristic of children of the Latin races.

"I have read in the papers that the older boy has said his name is Louis" the French Consul remarked, "but I can get nothing from him to prove it. It seems more likely to me that as he answers oui-oui to everything, he is understood to say that his name is Louis, which might seem to have the same saound to an American. I cabled to France and will do everything I can to find the relatives of the children, but as yet I have gained nothing from them to aid in the search."

Yet the children are by no means stupid. They are sweet, well-mannered, gentle little fellows, and my only hope for them is that having survived the perils of the iceberg and the open sea they may not be adopted by some American family which was born with a gold knife in its mouth.

Incidentally, the question of their adoption in the event that no relatives can be found remains unsettled.

"We have no intention of keeping them," remarked Miss Hays's father, beyond the time when their relatives are found or the search for them is given up. A Montreal family who were passengers on the Titanic are anxious to adopt them, and my daughter says they shall have the preference. Of course, many persons here in New York have also offered to take them.

"The published story that the children were in the same boat with my daughter and clung to her instinctively, is a misstatement. My daughter left in the first lifeboat and the two children followed on in later boats. The smaller boy was tossed from the deck of the Titanic into a lifeboat without a stitch of clothing. The older child wore only a shirt when he was taken aboard the Carpathia. The survivors of the Titanic on board formed a ladies' committee, and as my daughter was the only one among them who had not suffered some personal loss through the disaster she was asked to care for the two children, and gladly did so. She was told that the two children had been in the second cabin of the Titanic in the care of a man named Hoffman, but we have been unable to get any clue to their whereabouts from the White Star line or anywhere else.

"But I believe the companies exact certain definate information as to the destination, etc., from purchasers of second cabin tickets," I said. "Why is it not possible to get such information from the office where a man named Hoffman purchased his ticket?"

"I'm sure I can't say." Mr. Hays replied grandiloquently. "I have never travelled second cabin or steerage, so I don't know anything about such matters."

Why, oh why, can I never learn to keep my distance from the aristocracy of West End avenue, even when it has given shelter to two charming, well-mannered little children of the second cabin? I dont know, I'm sure.

Lawrence Beesley - Titanic Survivor

Later, Titanic Passenger Lawewnce Beesley wrote about seeing the boys - whom he only knew to be called Hoffman - with their father on the Titanic and commented on the sensational story surrounding them being on the ship :

Through the (second class library) windows there is the covered corridor, reserved by general consent as the children’s playground, and here are playing the two children with their father –devoted to them, never absent from them.

Who would have thought of the dramatic history of the happy group at play in the corridor that afternoon? – the abduction of the children in Nice, the assumed name, the separation of father and children in a few hours, his death and their subsequent union with their mother after a period of doubt as to their parentage!

How many more similar secrets the Titanic revealed in the privacy of family life, or carried down with her untold, we shall never know.

- Lawrence Beesley, The Loss of the Titanic, Its Story and Its Lessons

Mr Lawrwnce Beesley visited the address at West 83^rd Street, New York City, which was the home of Miss Hays. He confirmed that the children were the same Hoffman boys who were playing outside the second class library on the Titanic. Mrs Hays said that she had made some progress communicating with the boys in French.

At the time, there was a Mr Lefebre who was coming all the way from Iowa, in case they were his children. There was also a woman coming from Nice who wasn't called Hoffman, and another woman coming on a liner from Liverpool - both who thought they may be their sons.

Hugh Woolner, a First Class survivor gave evidence concerning the boys to the US Inquiry on Monday, April 29, 1912. While in Collapsible D one of the boys had been fed biscuits by him.

A sailor offered me some biscuits, which I was using for feeding a small child who had woken up and was crying. It was one of those little children for whose parents everybody was looking; the larger of those two. 

Senator Smith: Its mother was not on this boat? - No.
How old was that child? - I should think it was about five, as nearly as I can judge.
Do you know of what nationality it was? - I could not quite make out.
Do you know whether it was English or American? - I should say it was not either. I should think it was -
Senator Smith (interposing): I mean whether it belonged to an English parent or American parent? - It looked like a French child; but it kept shouting for its doll, and I could not make out what it said before that. It kept saying it over and over again.
Were there two of these children in the boat? - I cannot tell. This is the only one that I had anything to do with. There were several other children in the boat. We handed them into a bag, and they were pulled up the Carpathia's side.
Have you seen them since? - Yes, I think I saw it once on the Carpathia. It had very curly hair. Light, brownish, curly hair.
Was the child identified on the Carpathia? - Not as far as I know.

When the real story about the boys emerged it was one of kidnap and marital breakdown.

Michel Navratil

The boys father, Mr Michel Navratil  had been born in Szered, Slowakia, he later moved to Hungary and then, in 1902 went to Nice, France where he became a tailor. He married Marcelle Caretto from Italy, in London, on 26 May 1907. They had two sons, Michel M. and Edmond Roger - known as Lolo and Momon, however, by 1912 the business was in trouble and Michel claimed that Marcelle had been having an affair. The couple separated, the boys going with their mother.

They went to stay with their father over the Easter weekend, but when Marcelle came to collect them, they had disappeared.

It was the recovered Titanic victims corpse in the well-cut brown suit that yielded plenty of paper clues, and led to the formal identification of Louis M. Hoffman AKA Michel Navatil Snr.” There was a receipt in the name of Hoffman from the offices of the travel agency Thomas Cook & Company, in Monte Carlo.

It appeared that Mr Hoffman made trips there in March, the Daily Mirror reported on April 23 1912:

“Mr Hoffman paid several visits to the office with his children, and appeared to be an antiquarian, specially interested in old prints.The employees there believed that he came from Bavaria, and that he was making a tour round the world. He had been staying at Nice, at the Hotel des Voyageurs.”

Navratil had decide to take the boys with him to America. After stopping in Monte Carlo, they sailed to England where they stayed at the Charing Cross Hotel, London. He purchased second class tickets (ticket No.230080, £26) and boarded the Titanic at Southampton, the boys were booked on the ship as as Loto and Louis Hoffman. His assumed name of "Louis M. Hoffman" was stolen from a friend who helped him and the boys to leave France.

He led his fellow passengers to believe "Mrs Hoffman" was dead and rarely let the boys out of sight. Once, he allowed himself to relax at a card game and let one of his tablemates, Bertha Lehmann, a Swiss girl who spoke French but no English, to watch the boys for a few hours.

Mr Navratil wrote to his mother in Hungary, while on board, asking if his sister and her husband could care for the boys; possibly as a backup plan if they couldn't stay in America.

On the night of the sinking, Michel aided by another passenger, dressed the boys and brought them to the boat deck. When Second Officer Charles Lightoller ordered a locked-arms circle of crew members around Collapsible D so that only women and children could get through, Navratil handed the boys through the ring of men. Michel, Jr., recalled that just before placing him in the boat, his father gave a final message:

Michel Navratil Grave

"My child, when your mother comes for you, as she surely will, tell her that I loved her dearly and still do. Tell her I expected her to follow us, so that we might all live happily together in the peace and freedom of the New World."

His fathers body was recovered with a revolver in his pocket. Because he had used the Jewish surname of Hoffman on his ticket, Mr Navratil was interred on May 15th, 1912 in the Baron de Hirsch Cemetery which was designated for the Jewish victims.


Whilst the "Titanic Orphans" were being sheltered at the New York home of Margaret Hays under the auspices of the Children's Aid society, their mother Marcelle Navratil, recognized her boys from the many newspaper stories about their plight and was brought over to America by the White Star Line where she was finally reunited with her sons on May 16.

The three sailed back to France on the Oceanic.

REUNITED WITH THEIR MOTHER

The Titanic Orphans are reunited with their mother

Mrs Navraril then took the White Star Line to court in 1914

Action in the French courts

Nice, February 9th (1914).
An action against the White Star Line arising out of the loss of the Titanic began today before the Civil Court here. The Plaintiff, Mme Navratil, sues for £6,000 damages for the loss of her husband. Her two children, who were also on board, were saved.

The Directors of the White Star Line contended that she was not entitled to appeal to a French court, as she was not a Frenchwoman. She thereupon asked for an adjournment for three months to enable her to prove that she was, and this was granted.
(The Times, Tuesday February 10, 1914)

Margaret Hays kept in regular contact with Gilbert Tucker after their rescue but eventually chose to marry Dr. Charles Daniel Easton, a Rhode Island physician in 1913 and the couple lived in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island. They were the parents of two daughters.

Grave of Margaret Hays Easton

Margaret Bechstein Hays Easton died in Buenos Aires, Argentina while vacationing with her daughter and granddaughter on 21 August 1956. She was buried at St. Mary's Churchyard, Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

As for the two tragic boys she had cared for, Edmond Navratil worked as interior decorator and then became an architect and builder. He was married and during World War II he fought with the French Army, was captured and made a prisoner-of-war. He managed to escape from the camp in which he was held, but his health had suffered and he died in the early 1950s aged 43.

Michel Navraril later recalled the Titanic voyage in a translated interview:

"A magnifacent ship!...I remember looking down the length of the hull - the ship looked splended. My brother and I played on the forward deck and were thrilled to be there. One morning, my father, my brother, and I were eating eggs in the second-class dinning room. The sea was stunning. My feeling was one of total and utter well-being."

He described the events on the night of the sinking:

"My father entered our cabin where we were sleeping. He dressed me very warmly and took me in his arms. A stranger did the same for my brother. When I think of it now, I am very moved. They knew they were going to die."

 "I don't recall being afraid, I remember the pleasure, really, of going plop! into the life-boat. We ended up next to the daughter of an American banker, There were vast diffrences of people's wealth on the ship, and I realized later that if we hadn't been in second-class, we would have of died. The people who came out alive often cheated and were aggressive,  but the honest poor didn't stand a chance."

"We had our back to Titanic and went to sleep. The next morning, I saw Carpathia on the horizon. I was hauled abord in a burlap bag. I thought it was extremely incorrect to be in a burlap bag!" 

Michel Navratil

Michel went to university where he married a fellow student in 1933, he went on to earn his doctorate, becoming a professor of psychology.

Marcelle Caretto, the mother of Michel Jr. and Edmond, died in 1963.

In 1987, he returned to the U.S. for the first time since 1912 to mark the 75th anniversary of the sinking.

The last living male survivor, Michel lived in Montpellier, near Nice France.

 On 27 August 1996, Mr Navratil visited his father's grave for the first time in 84 years.

Michel's daughter, Élisabeth, an opera director, wrote a book, Les enfants du Titanic (English: "The Children of the Titanic"; called Survivors in English) about the experiences of her father, grandfather, and uncle.

Michel Navratil died on 30 January 2001 at the age of 92.

Beatrice “Betty” Cadbury Boek: Conscientious Objector & Peace Campaigner

Beatrice Cadbury - known as "Betty" - was the youngest child of Richard and Emma Jane Cadbury, who were members of the famous Midlands Chocolate Manufacturing Quaker Family, Beatrice was born at Moseley Hall in 1884 and lived there until she was 7 years old, when the family moved to the newly built house named Uffculme on Queensbridge Road. She spent 4 years attending the Fröbel kindergarten, a child centred, experimental school which focused on learning through play. At the age of 11 she began her formal education at Edgbaston High School for Girls, later spending two years as a boarder at The Mount Quaker School in York. After this Beatrice attended Westfield College, London from 1903 to 1905.

Beatrice Cadbury

Beatrice’s idyllic childhood also included many holidays abroad with the family including a tour of Egypt and Israel and Syria when she was 13, staying for a time with her father Richard’s cousin Caroline Cadbury in Brummana, Syria,at the Friends Mission Station. Unfortunately a second trip to Egypt in 1899 would prove fatal for Richard Cadbury who contracted diphtheria and subsequently suffered a heart attack and died.

Despite her father's death,  the opportunities for travel continued, including a world tour in 1906 for Beatrice and Emma Jane en route to visit another Cadbury daughter, Daisy and her husband who were missionaries in China for the Friends Foreign Missionary Association (FFMA). Luck while travelling didn’t seem to be on the Cadburys side, as Beatrice’s mother Emma Jane Cadbury fell downstairs whilst on a ship to Canada. She never regained consciousness and died on the 21^st May 1907. After their mother’s death, Beatrice moved in with her older sister, Helen and her husband Charles. Their home, which was called "Tennessee", was situated in the grounds of Uffculme. 

Barrow Cadbury, Beatrice’s eldest brother, had inherited the Uffculme estate and turned the main house into an Adult Education Centre in memory of their father. Helen’s husband Charles was an evangelical preacher whose work took him around the world, and so further opportunities for travel presented themselves, instilling Beatrice with a strong desire to do some kind of missionary work of her own. 

Beatrice joined the FFMA and served on the Candidate Committee, the group responsible for appointing missionaries. The FFMA worked in China, India, Madagascar and Syria. Having previously visited in Syria she agreed to also serve on the Syria Committee. In 1910 the Candidate Committee met to select a Head teacher for the Boy’s School in Brummana. One of the candidates was Cornelius Boeke who was always known as Kees (pronounced Case). Kees was the youngest child in a large family of Mennonites and the son of a secondary school teacher from Alkmaar in Northern Holland. He was 26 years old and a post graduate student of engineering at Delft University, but had been studying at the University of London. He was recommended for the post by Henry Hodgkin, chair of the Student Christian Movement Conference and FFMA. 

Kees Boeke

Kees Boeke had decided he did not want to be an engineer because he felt called to do mission work, especially in education, and he was very interested in the work of the Society of Friends. Kees was given the job and began a year’s training, some of which was at Kingsmeade, and some at Woodbrooke in Selly Oak.

Beatrice remained involved with Kees and his fellow Brummana trainee Christofer Naish, by inviting them to a study group at Kingsmeade. Their courtship began when Kees wrote to Beatrice asking her to pray for him because he was nervous about speaking at a conference and an attraction blossomed based on their common beliefs and ideals. For Beatrice it was truly a meeting of minds. On July 19^th 1911, after only 6 weeks they became officially engaged. Although some of the family were not happy with the speed of the courtship, Helen and Charles were supportive. In September Kees went out to Brummana to get acquainted with the school and the Arabic language, before returning in December to marry Beatrice on the 19^th after exactly 5 months of engagement. 

The journey back to Syria was taken at a leisurely pace to include a trip to Kees’ mother in Alkmaar and also stops in Paris, Marseilles, Cairo and Beirut. The Boeks enjoyed life in Brummana, the boys at the school were well behaved and although simple, the living conditions and cuisine agreed with Beatrice. Tackling ‘the evils that characterise village life’ was more difficult, despite their progress with learning Arabic. In November 1912, their first child, a daughter they named Helen was born, but soon afterwards Beatrice was struck down by Typhoid, and was severely ill for some time. Whilst the couple were away in England and Holland recuperating, another headmaster was appointed for the school.

When they returned in 1913, Kees was instead given the job of inspecting day schools, traveling by donkey to different villages. Integrating with the locals was more difficult but their effort in learning the language paid off as Kees was able to give addresses in Arabic at meetings. In 1914 while arranging to return to the school at Brummana, their plans were shattered by the outbreak of the First World War. Although Beatrice was now officially Dutch by marriage and Holland was neutral in the war, they were persuaded by the British consulate that as they worked for an English Missionary society it would be better for their Arab friends not to be associated with English people. Sadly Beatrice and Kees returned to England, expecting the war to be over soon so they could return to Syria, this time with two children, as Beatrice was now pregnant for the second time.

When the boat arrived at Southampton, their Dutch papers were under suspicion and they were ordered to stay on the boat until London to receive their official paperwork. After this they remained largely untouched by the war during 1914, as they returned to live at Tennessee and prepared for the birth of a second child. However as Quakers, Beatrice and Kees would have to decide what their moral attitude was towards the war. 

Beatrice and Kees

In 1915 they joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Different Christian denominations banded together to oppose the war on religious grounds. Their activities included press campaigns and street preaching.  Kees became the secretary of the Birmingham branch. The FOR opposed Conscription and worked with the No Conscription Fellowship to support Conscientious Objectors. 

The Cadbury family were somewhat divided in their views on the war with some like Egbert Cadbury joining the military or working towards the war effort and others taking a compromise position, like Lawrence Cadbury who joined the Friends Ambulance Unit. For Kees and Beatrice, their position was an Absolutist one.  Kees decided to take a more active role in peace campaigning and in July 1915 he travelled to Germany at the request of the FOR to meet with German anti-war campaigners. With Holland remaining neutral in the war, Kees was ideally placed for travel across Europe and hoped to enter Germany without being interrogated. While Kees was away Beatrice was questioned by a policeman, his letters from Holland had been opened and the authorities wanted to know the exact nature of his trip. Beatrice proudly told the policeman that her husband was “carrying out peace work in Europe”. When Kees returned in September, he was elated to have met with prominent peace campaigners such as Elizabeth Rotten, a Swiss Quaker who was helping prisoners in Germany, Eduard Bernstein the socialist and Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze who was a friend of Henry Hodgkin’s. 

Kees had been able get papers allowing him to travel to Germany by getting a separate Dutch passport which didn’t show his travel from England, but because of this, he was almost stopped from re-entering England. Fortunately his policy of honesty with the customs official – freely admitting that he’d travelled around Germany by using a Dutch passport - was successful and he was allowed to return to his wife and family.

Kees’s troubles began in 1916 when he was asked to resign from the private school Woodruffs where he had been teaching since October 1915. During scripture lessons he told the boys that ‘the Germans are our brothers’ and quoted biblical passages including ‘Love your enemies’. Several parents feared their children were being taught German propaganda!

Beatrice was angry at the way her husband was treated, but both agreed that they were now free to throw themselves into working with the FOR. The time had also come when Beatrice felt that living in luxury at Tennessee was wrong - it did not balance well with the horrors which European civilians were enduring, and the hardships that their Syrian friends were facing. Beatrice may also have been worried that their forceful stance towards the war would reflect badly on the Cadbury family and her sister Helen’s household.

Kees and Beatrice moved into 52 Anderton Park Road in Moseley. It was a modest house by their standards, without fine furniture and servants, but the couple’s close friend Eveline Fletcher moved in with them to be on hand to help with the children. Eveline’s husband Ernest was a Photographer, and both had a strong Church of England faith which would not allow them to support the war. Ernest was currently serving a sentence in Portland Prison as a conscientious objector and was relieved to hear that his wife was being taken into the Boeke household. 

At this time Kees was regularly preaching outside a munitions factory and Beatrice was involved with the Friend’s War Victims Committee, giving support to the families of ‘enemy aliens’; German, Austrian and Hungarian men living in England at the outbreak of war, who were interred in camps to prevent them being a danger to the state.

In December 1916, Kees was preaching as usual when unnoticed by him, two special constables began to observe and write down his speeches in their notebooks. As usual a crowd had gathered to listen to him. He was a compelling orator, and he told them:

 ‘’Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you! The Germans are our brothers. Let soldiers throw down their arms and refuse to fight - join the brotherhood of man.”

 

Most of the crowd was enthusiastic, and there were cheers of support, but then a drunken soldier accused Kees of being a traitor. The special constables intervened and stopped the speech on the grounds that it was ‘becoming disorderly’ and Kees was moved on. He defiantly continued preaching in the streets, whilst Beatrice, who was now pregnant with their fourth child, would hand out leaflets to the crowds. She remarked to her children that:

“It speaks much for English freedom of speech that Daddy is able to speak at street corners and in squares without being officially forbidden”.

 

Their anti-war work continued to grow in boldness. In January 1918 they were sent on behalf of the FOR to help mobilize the pacifist movement which was growing in the Welsh mining communities. The family moved to Neath,and Kees spoke at many church and chapel meetings, but the reception was not what they might have hoped for. The Welsh sometimes mistook his accent for German and he was arrested under a local bye law for causing an obstruction, being sent to Swansea prison when he refused to pay the fine. A search revealed sufficient money on his person to pay the fine and he was subsequently released. 

The press in Birmingham got hold of the story and goaded the police by saying:

 “How is it that this young Dutchman is left free to undermine military authority and public morale? We answer by publishing a certificate of his marriage”

 

This implied that Kees’ connection to the Cadbury Family was the only thing that kept him out of serious trouble but this was not to be the case.

Kees Boeke

  In February 1918 Kees was summoned to stand trial for offences against the new DORA (Defence of the Realm Act) at Birmingham Law Courts. The charge was that in a public square he had made statements ‘likely to interfere with the success of His Majesty’s forces and prejudice their recruiting and discipline’. The prosecutor argued that Kees’ statements - especially the call for soldiers to lay down arms - made him an insurrectionary force and therefore he posed a threat to the country’s stability. The magistrate, Lord Ilkeston, was not likely to listen to Kees’ philosophical arguments that his statements were in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ and thus he was only breaking the law to “fulfil a higher law”. Kees was ordered to pay a £50 fine or face 41 days imprisonment, as was expected Kees would not, on principal, pay the fine and so was sentenced to serve out the term at Winston Green Prison.

This was not unexpected and it could even be said that Beatrice and Kees had an overly romantic vision of the nobility of confinement. However no one expected Lord Ilkeston’s next move – he recommended that Kees Boeke be deported back to Holland. 

Although Kees himself remained calm, the reaction from their friends on the FOR was one of shock and disbelief – causing Lord Ilkeston to order the immediate clearance of the courtroom. Although support for Kees continued after the trial, with members of the FOR writing to the home office and a supportive article in The New Crusader a Christian Socialist magazine, it made precious little difference. In April 1918 a Deportation Order was issued and Kees was transferred from Winston Green to Wormwood Scrubs to await deportation. Here he discovered that he was actually suspected of being a German spy. Beatrice struggled to make plans whilst Kees was in London and their only contact was through fortnightly letters on prison paper.

The date for deportation was kept secret, perhaps to foil a publicity campaign. This meant that Beatrice travelled to London on April 9^th only to find her husband had been deported the previous day! Despite fears about the danger of a channel crossing he arrived safely at his mother’s house in Alkmaar. However it would be months before the rest of the family could join him. They were finally granted permission to travel with a camouflaged convoy in July 1918 and they had to undertake their own perilous journey across the English Channel. 

After a blissful summer of reunion, in September 1918 they began to look for a house of their own and settled in Bilthoven, outside Utrecht. Their villa was known as Het Boschhuis – the house in woods - and it was an idyllic location in which to raise the children, and a perfect place to continue their peace work. They had just begun to settle in to their new home, when on their eldest daughter Helen’s 6^th birthday on the 11^th November 1918, the armistice was signed and the war finally ended. 

After the war the joy which the ceasefire should have brought was somewhat marred by Kees once more getting himself into trouble with the authorities. In the evening of the 11th Kees cycled to Vreeburg Square in Ultrecht and began to preach for the first time in Holland. He was promptly arrested (although later released without charge) because outdoor meetings were still illegal in Holland, without prior permission from the Mayor, and Kees was not in possession of the proper license. This was an early indication that the authorities in Holland would prove to be even less forgiving than those in England. 

The joyful mood of the time could not be dented for long though –this was an era of idealism, with many working hard to ensure a conflict on the scale of ‘The Great War’ could never happen again. Kees, Beatrice and their friends Ernest and Eveline Fletcher, who had relocated to Bilthoven after the war, worked with Henry Hodgkin of the FOR to bring together pacifists from across Europe, for a conference at Het Boschhuisin October 1919. There were 35 delegates – both men and women, from 10 countries. These delegates included Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze (realising Kees’s dream of bringing him and Henry Hodgkin together) and many others including Pierre Ceresole from Switzerland, whose staunch pacifism included refusing to pay tax in protest at government spending on arms. He had also given away a large part of his inherited wealth. His views would go on to have a powerful effect on the Boeke’s. The delegates had come together in friendship to share their belief that war and Christianity were incompatible; they formed the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) and parted joyfully with plans for another conference in the following year.

Beatrice & Kees Boeke

Kees and Beatrice were now even more determined, and after a few months of pamphlet making and speech writing, they took to the streets once more to spread their Christian pacifist message, despite their applications for permits being rejected. The Armistice Day incident had given some indication of the likely consequences, but no one was prepared for the actual outcome. Once Kees began to speak, himself, Beatrice and Ernest who had accompanied them were all quickly arrested and fined for preaching without a permit. The real trouble began when they all refused to pay their fines because they believed they had done nothing wrong, and were ordered to appear in court the following week. All three were given prison sentences – Kees and Ernest for three weeks, and Beatrice for two weeks. This was a complete shock to all because at that time Beatrice was 8 months pregnant with her fifth child.  

The jail sentence was borne by all with as much patience as possible, but it was especially hard for Beatrice who suffered from claustrophobia in her cell alone at night and could not bend down to the grate which provided the only source of fresh air. Thankfully her baby did not arrive early, and Candia Boeke was born on the 6^th May 1920, 8 days after Kees was released from prison. 

When the news of Beatrice’s incarceration reached Birmingham, the Cadbury family were dreadfully worried. Little did they know that this was the start of a much more radical period for the entire Boeke family.

Despite using her wealth for many good causes – including the building of a new conference centre next to Het Boschhuisan, Beatrice felt increasingly guilty about her wealth. She would go on to decide to gift her shares in Cadbury to the workers – giving workers power to affect company policy and money to spend as they saw fit on advancing the cause of peace. They would also stop paying their taxes, and instigate an open door policy in their home. 

The circumstances surrounding these momentous decisions are detailed in Fiona Joseph’s excellent book, Beatrice: The Cadbury Heiress Who Gave Away Her Fortune, which also goes on to describe the Boeke’s eventual decision to start a school. Kees Boeke became well known in Holland as an educator and founder of The ‘Werkplaats’ School (The Workplace or Workshop School). Several works about the school were published in Dutch.

The impact which The Great War (and later the Second World War) had on the ideals of both Beatrice and Kees Boeke, remained central to their unending commitment to creating a better society, where Christian values would ensure that conflict was unthinkable. Their legacy is ensured as ‘two of the most original and exceptional educators of the twentieth century, in Holland and around the world’.