Dutch Christian Woman Honored as Righteous Among the Nations Eight Decades After Saving a Jewish Infant

Yad Vashem announced this month that Jacqueline Meents-Lenstra (also reported as Jacqueline Mintz), a Christian resident of the Netherlands, will be inscribed on the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations in Jerusalem. The honor recognizes her 1944-45 rescue of newborn Ephraim Kochba, who was placed with her and her Jewish husband Max after his parents, Ziegfried Fritz and Martha van Coevorden, entrusted the infant to the couple as Nazi persecution intensified. Max was later detained in the Westerbork transit camp, leaving Jacqueline alone to care for the child.

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The Van Coevorden family was murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau; Ziegfried died on April 25 1945, three days before his 29th birthday, and Martha on January 2 1945 at age 26. After the war, a legal custody battle placed Ephraim with surviving relatives, and he immigrated to Israel at age 4. He grew up unaware of the full rescue story until, after his Israeli Defense Forces service, he traveled to the Netherlands, met his adoptive father, and received the diary Jacqueline had kept documenting his early months, later translated into Hebrew.

The Jerusalem Post

Since the program’s inception, Yad Vashem has recognized more than 28,700 non-Jewish rescuers. The Netherlands accounts for 6,137 honorees, ranking behind Poland’s 7,318.

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Yad Vashem’s commission confirmed the decision to grant the Righteous title to Jacqueline, noting her “protective and loving home” for the infant despite the risk of Nazi retaliation. Ephraim Kochba expressed gratitude, describing the recognition as “the most moving gift” he could receive and affirming that Jacqueline fully deserved the honor.

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The award underscores Yad Vashem’s ongoing effort to document and honor acts of rescue that have emerged from newly examined archives and testimonies, even eight decades after the Holocaust. By adding Jacqueline’s name to the Wall of Honor, the ceremony highlights the interfaith solidarity that existed in occupied Europe and reinforces the broader historical record of civilian bravery during the genocide.

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