Belgian police officials have still not been able to trace the whereabouts of Anneke Beekman, teenage Jewish war orphan, who was whisked away from a Catholic school near Liege March 12 when Dutch and Belgian police officials approached the school to claim her.
The child, placed in the care of a Catholic foster mother during the Nazi occupation of Holland, was baptized by the foster mother who has refused to return her to the Jewish community, despite the decision of the Netherlands authorities.
The case has caught the imagination of the Belgian press, which has considered the problem of war orphans in general in a number of articles. The Catholic “La Libre Belgique.” commenting specifically on the Beekman case, wrote today that the affection of the foster mother was far better for the girl than the care she could obtain in an orphanage or from a committee in whose care she might be placed.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
