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From Rescued to Rescuer: Holocaust Survivor Takes Part in Two Rescue Missions

Leah Goldstein

For almost three years until the end of the WWII, Harry Klausner was hidden with his sister Ruth at the home of Oepke Haitsma and Jitske Haitsma-Tiesma in Zeist near Utrecht in the Netherlands. The Haitsmas’ children could not bring home friends, lest the existence of the secret guests be revealed, and Harry and Ruth were not allowed to play outside. With neither books nor toys, all Harry could do was look out of the attic window at the Allied planes passing over the houses on their way to bomb Germany. "As I watched the airplanes flying over," Harry recalled many years later, "I became captivated by the aircrafts, and decided that I would become a pilot."

Survivor Arieh Oz in his Israeli Air Force pilot uniform

Yad Vashem Archives

Jacqueline Lamberty receiving the certificate and medal of honor on behalf of her late parents, Righteous Among the Nations Henri and Emilie Lamberty, from Righteous Commission Delegation member Jacky Offen

After liberation, Rosa Klausner, who had been hidden in Utrecht, reunited with her children and they immigrated to Israel. Harry changed his name to Arieh Oz, and fulfilled his childhood dream by enlisting in the Israel Air Force and becoming a pilot.

When Oz’s son had his bar mitzvah, he invited the Haitsmas to attend the celebration, and together with his mother turned to Yad Vashem to have his rescuers' heroic wartime acts formally documented. On 30 May 1976, Yad Vashem recognized Oepke Haitsma and his wife, Jitske Haitsma-Tiesma, as Righteous Among the Nations, and a tree was planted in their honor on the Mount of Remembrance in June of that year.

A month later, on 4 July 1976, during Operation Thunderbolt (later named Operation Yonatan), Oz flew one of the Israeli C-130 aircrafts to Entebbe in the now-famous hostage rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces. The child whose life had been saved by the courageous Dutch couple during the Holocaust now became the rescuer of others – and his story was still not complete.

In May 1991, Oz flew an El Al Boeing 747 during Operation Salomon, a covert Israeli operation to airlift Ethiopian Jews to Israel, when 35 Israeli aircrafts brought 14,325 Ethiopian Jews to Israel within 36 hours. Arieh Oz was recently honored to participate in the seminar for senior IDF staff at Yad Vashem to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

"This story of rescue – both of the survivor and by the survivor – is a truly wonderful example of how one good deed can lead to many more," said Irena Steinfeldt, Director of the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem.

"Recently we honored another couple as Righteous Among the Nations, Henri and Emilie Lamberty from Belgium, who saved a five-year-old Jewish boy, Georges Gutelman, during the Shoah. Many decades later, Georges himself provided the Israeli authorities with planes from his own airline company to rescue thousands of Ethiopian Jews stranded in Sudan. These stories are so moving and inspirational."

This article originally appeared in the "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine," volume 86.

Rescue by JewsSurvivorsRighteous Among the Nations