Keys of My Life: A Memoir by Carla Olman Peperzak - Paperback

by Carla Olman Peperzak (Author)

"Carla Olman Peperzak donned a blue-and-white nurse's uniform and made her way to Amsterdam's Central Station. She had received word that an aunt and five cousins would be passing through on the way to Westerbork, the Nazi detention center in northeast Holland. Her uncle had already been seized by the Nazis. So when Peperzak found her relatives in a railcar waiting on the tracks she asked if she could take the youngest one. She carried the toddler off the train. But the station was teeming with German soldiers, and a couple of them stopped her. Who are you and where are you going, they wanted to know. Peperzak was a teenage wartime Dutch Resistance operative who, by her estimation, helped hide approximately 40 Jews from the Germans during World War II. She forged identification papers for about five dozen others, served as a messenger for the Underground movement and helped publish a newsletter of Allied Forces' activities on a banned mimeograph machine.These are not the things she told the Nazis.In German, which she had learned in school as well as from her Austrian nanny, Peperzak said the boy was sick and needed to get to a hospital. She was young, attractive and Jewish. She was also disguised as a German nurse, with a stolen medical identification card in her pocket. If her true identity had been discovered, "That would have been the end of me."Still, she didn't consider herself particularly brave. Her resistance was born of gratitude. Peperzak didn't wear a star. So she helped those who did."I was 18, 19, 20. I was not married. I did not have any responsibility - only for myself - and that made a big difference," she said. "I felt I could help. I had the opportunity.""

Author Biography

Carla Olman Peperzak Carla was born and raised in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She was sixteen years old in 1940 when the nazies occupied The Netherlands. She is a Holocaust survivor and persevered for three and a half years as an active resistance fighter in the Dutch Resistance. Mainly Carla helped fellow Jews in hiding. She met and married her husband, Paul, after the war. She first arrived in the US in 1948. She and Paul lived on several continents. They moved 13 times overseas and in the US. Carla moved to Spokane in 2004 following Paul's death. During the last 10 years she has dedicated her life to educating people about the Holocaust mainly to students at middle schools, high schools and universities primarily in the Pacific Inland Northwest. She is an official speaker of the Seattle based Holocaust Institute for Humanity. Carla is passionate in teaching people about the Holocaust so that the atrocities of those years will not be repeated and that the six million Jews who died will not be forgotten. She was honored in 2015 by the state of Washington in the Senate Resolution 8623 as a hero and a person who saved many lives. Carla considers herself a "professional volunteer" as over the years she has received many awards for her endeavors. Her awards and service includes: President of the World Bank Volunteer Service, President of the Colorado Opera Festival, Recipient of the El Paso County Bar Auxiliary (Molly Walker Award) for outstanding service to law related education, member of the planning group of Opera America Trustee Volunteer Project, Paul and Carla received the award, Opera Guilds International Partners in Excellence, for outstanding volunteer services in the field of Opera, President of the Colorado Opera Festival, Vice-President of Colorado Springs Hadassah Chapter and President of the Spokane Hadassah Chapter, in Kenya she was involved in the Red Cross and organized a scouting troop in Thailand and numerous civic volunteer works. Carla has become a cornerstone in every one of her communities, naturally helping those in need. She continues to provide time, wisdom, and warmth wherever she can. And, most importantly, as the memory of the Holocaust fades, Carla keeps the flame of remembrance alive for generations to come.