SYCAMORE TOWNSHIP — Henry Blumenstein was just 6 years old when a Dutch farm couple risked their lives to save him from the tentacles of Nazi Germany.

        He stayed with his “foster family” three years. The 66-year-old retired social worker from Mount Washington still maintains ties with them because he owes his life to them. “These people always were and always will be my family,” Mr. Blumenstein told 250 Moeller High School sophomores Monday.

        The farm couple's granddaughter, Sjoukje Dykstra, 39, of Friesland, Holland, and Mr. Blumenstein are sharing their story with students at 20 Tristate schools over the next two weeks.

        Their appearances are part of Holocaust Awareness Weeks, April 7-21, sponsored by the Center for Holocaust & Humanity Education at the Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion.

        Mr. Blumenstein's father was taken from Vienna, Austria, on Nov. 10, 1938, during Kristallnacht, when rioters looted and vandalized Jewish businesses. He later was ordered to leave the country and ended up in Cuba.

        After unsuccessfully attempting to join him, the young Henry Blumenstein, his mother and grandmother moved to Holland. After his grandmother was taken by Nazis in late 1942, he and his mother moved from house to house to avoid detection.

        His mother located homes where they could stay, thinking it best that they separate. She was later caught and died at Auschwitz concentration camp.

        That's a part of his life — what it's like to lose a mother — that students want to know more about. It hit home with Moeller student John DeNicola, 16, of Liberty Township. “I learned it's very important the time we spend with our parents. He didn't have much time with his mother ...”

        It was 1943 when Mr. Blumenstein went to live with Johennes and Sjoukje Dykstra, a poor Catholic family from Friesland with eight children. Two months earlier, they had taken in another Jewish boy.

        “They took in two Jewish children and placed themselves in very high danger,” Mr. Blumenstein said.

        To disguise his ethnicity, the family dyed his hair red and called him “Hans,” a Dutch name. The youngest children in the family didn't know the two boys were Jewish. It was too dangerous.

        Once, a Nazi soldier put a gun to his foster father's head and said, “I know you have Jews. Give me your Jews.” Mr. Blumenstein was hiding nearby and heard the demand. “If my foster father had shown any nervousness, he would have given himself away. He could have very well been killed.”

        Instead, Mr. Dykstra nonchalantly said, “Look, if there are any Jews here, you can have them.” With that, the soldier backed off.

        After the Jews were liberated, Mr. Blumenstein was reunited with his father, who had relocated to New York, in 1946.

        Ms. Dykstra learned about the two Jewish boys as she was growing up. “My father always told us that story because he thought it was very important and because he was proud of his parents,” she said. “They didn't do it to be heroes, but they thought it was the only thing they could do.”

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