The trial of six Dutch Roman Catholics charged with complicity in the abduction of 14-year-old Anreke Beekman, a Jewish war orphan, has brought demands from the Dutch public prosecutor for jail terms for the principle defendants. A packed courtroom heard the public prosecutor demand six months imprisonment for the most important defendant, Mrs. G.M. Langendijk-van Moorst.
The missing girl, who was less than three years old when her Orthodox Jewish parents were seized by the Nazis and sent to the gas chambers in Germany, is being kept in a convent in Belgium, according to evidence given by a Dutch superintendent on behalf of the Bishop of Liege.
In addition to the jail term for the 52-year-old Mrs. van Moorst, the prosecutor asked that she be taken into custody immediately, to prevent her from fleeing the country. Other sentences asked by the prosecutor are 10 months for Mrs. van Moorst’s 57-year-old sister who fled to Belgium with Anneke and who has never returned to Holland; 2 months for a former priest who drove the child to a convent; 3 months probation for a cousin of Mrs. van Moorst; 6 months for the Dutch Mother Superior of a Belgian convent; and one month’s probation for the former Mother Superior of the Bussum Convent near Amsterdam.
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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.
