Going into Hiding at De Driest estate
Ernst and Käthe Sigmund were very aware of the dangers of the rising Nazism. After Hitler's rise to power in 1933, the Sigmunds decided to flee to the Netherlands with their then nearly 4-year-old daughter Lotte and Kurt, who was still just a baby.
As a girl, Mrs. Liesbeth de Nooij (with whom the Sigmunds lived) had left for the Netherlands in 1928 together with her neighbor girl Paula from Lemgo in Germany.
Paula had trained as a cook in Detmold and went to work as a maid on the de Driest estate. This estate is situated on the Oud Bussummerweg, halfway between Bussum and Huizen.
Paula Niggeman married Bab Kamphorst in May 1939 and they immediately moved into the house in the photo. They lived in an outbuilding on the De Driest estate, where they resided until 1965. The neighboring girls Liesbeth and Paula were friends. They maintained contact, as did the location; De Driest is isolated in the woods. In the house where the Kamphorst family lived, a hole was made in the ceiling leading to the attic, where the Sigmund family would go into hiding.
Paula's sister also lived in Bussum. Five Jews hid with her. They survived the war.
The Kamphorst family, with whom Sigmund would go into hiding, lived in the left part of this house. The house was renovated after the war. In its original state, the house had small windows with shutters painted green and white.
When the entire inventory of the house at Hooftlaan 13 was recorded on May 7, 1942, the valuable possessions were no longer included. These had already been brought to safety with the Kamphorst family; a cassette containing silver cutlery and Lieselotte's silver egg cup. Sigmund had the cutlery—all the spoons, knives, and forks—engraved with a self-made design of three intertwined letters: E, K and S representing their names, Ernst and Käthe Sigmund.
The cassette and the small egg cup were added to the collection of the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam.
https://collections.jck.nl/details/collection/12017400
Arrested
The book 't Hooge Nest by Roxane van Iperen is about the area where the De Driest estate is situated, between Bussum and Huizen. Het Gooi was an NSB stronghold, one of the wealthiest NSB regions in the Netherlands. According to Van Iperen, it was a region of contradictions: wooded tranquility on the surface, but beneath it a world of betrayal, fear, and resistance that constantly intersected. It was in this world that the Sigmund family lived and made preparations to go into hiding.
The day before the Sigmund family was to go into hiding, they were arrested.
[Source: Joods Monument]
They may have been taken to Vught first. They were in Westerbork camp early August 1942.