A five-year-old child, kidnapped by her father a year ago and placed in a Catholic institution in Barcelona, Spain, was brought back to this city yesterday and is to be returned to the custody of her Jewish mother.
The child, Marja Aykens, arrived at Schiphol Airport accompanied by a Dutch Roman Catholic priest after months of negotiations and efforts. She was kidnapped by her father the Dutch courts had deprived him of parental authority and had placed the child in her mother’s tutelage. Her father intended, after his divorce, to take the child and emigrate to Brazil. Chief Rabbi Justus Tal of Amsterdam succeeded through the intermediary of the Bishop of Haarlem and with the aid of the Dutch Foreign Office, to induce the Spanish authorities to aid in restoring the girl to her mother.
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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.
