His Family Survived the Nazis by Living in a Chicken Coop

In 1942, when Max Heppner was 8, his parents told him they were leaving Amsterdam to go on a family vacation. Instead, they went into hiding in a small farm town in the Netherlands, Zeilberg, where they lived out the war in a chicken coop.

Max’s father, Albert Heppner, was a Berlin-born art dealer specializing in Dutch old master paintings. This was the second time he and his wife, Irene, had to flee the Nazis. They had left Germany in 1933, when Irene was pregnant, because they were Jews. Now they were on the run again, carrying away all they could fit into several pieces of luggage and a gray-blue backpack.

They were taken in by a Catholic family of farmers, the Janssens, who had 9 children and lots of livestock. Luckily, just before the Heppners arrived — Harry Janssen used to joke, to soothe the sad reality — the Nazis had stolen all the chickens.

The coop had two small rooms and a slanted roof. At six feet tall, Albert could stand up straight only at its highest point. It had a brick floor and a small stove, designed to keep chicks warm, which was helpful. But even so, Max said, “it was always cold.”

Max played with the other children, and used a made-up name, Franjse, to help hide his identity. During the day, while the other children went to school, Max stayed behind on the farm, milking cows, doing chores and getting home-schooled by his father.

“In some ways, it was nice because I liked to be on the farm, but sometimes I felt very bereft, because all that I knew from before was gone,” he said. “I didn’t have my toys, I didn’t have my friends. … I didn’t even have my name anymore because I had to take on a fake name.”