#Story
People in hiding at the bakery
Like nearly all Jews during the war, Eva and Albert Zeligman from Meerssen were summoned to report for deportation at Maastricht railway station. On the day of departure at the end of August 1942, Eva pretended to be seriously ill and unable to travel. The Nazis believed her and they ordered Mr and Mrs Zeligman to return home.
Albert Zeligman, who ran a butchery, was convinced that the German occupiers would summon them again for deportation. He had also told that to Joseph Mommers, a baker from Bunderstraat who delivered bread to the Zeligman family.
Joseph Mommers and his wife Anna offered to help them if it came to that. On a wintry evening in February 1943, Mr and Mrs Zeligman stood at the door of the Mommers bakery. They were allowed in and then hid in the attic for nineteen months.
The couple survived the war, but their two children, Herbert and Hildegard, did not. The Nazis had taken the children out of the parental home on 25 August 1942. Their fate had been decided in advance. Uncle Salomon, who lived with the family, did not survive the war either. He was rounded up in April 1943 and gassed in Sobibor one month later.