A Believer in Heroism, to Jews’ Lasting Gratitude

Dr. Tina Strobos in her Westchester apartment

By JOSEPH BERGER
NYT

RYE, N.Y.

The walls of Dr. Tina Strobos’s light-filled apartment here are dappled not only with paintings but also with the many plaques she has received from Jewish organizations, even though she is not Jewish.

Dr. Strobos, a sturdy 89, is honored every so often for the quietly valiant things she did almost 70 years ago as a medical student during the German occupation of the Netherlands: working with her mother, she hid more than 100 Jews who passed through their three-story rooming house in Amsterdam.

That sanctuary, which included an attic lair that was never discovered, was just a 10-minute stroll from a more famous hideout: Anne Frank’s at 263 Prinsengracht. Indeed, the question of why the Franks did not have an escape hatch for when the Gestapo barged in gets her fairly worked up.

At her home, the Jews were stowed away on the upper floors with quick access to the attic, which had a secret compartment for two or three people to cram into. “A carpenter came with a toolbox and said: ‘I’m a carpenter from the underground. Show me the house, and I’ll build a hiding place,’ ” she recalled.

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