Hundreds of Belgian policemen today combed convents in the area between Liege and Banneux, searching for the Jewish war orphan Anneke Beekman who was abducted by Catholics. However, they found no trace of either the girl or her former foster mother, who fled after she had been sentenced to prison by a Dutch court for kidnapping the Jewish orphan.
The surviving members of the girl’s family, who live in Holland, issued a statement today replying to a letter in a Netherlands newspaper which was allegedly written by the girl herself. The family statement stressed that Anneke came from an Orthodox Jewish family and that her parents had been murdered at Auschwitz. It had never been the intention of her parents, the statement continued, that the girl should remain in Catholic guardianship forever. The present detention of Anneke in an unknown place, the family said, was a violation of the most basic rights of man.
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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.
