Sold – Compelling Note from the Christian Martyred for Saving the Jews During the Holocaust

In 1936 Bas Jan Ader, a Dutch student of theology, cycled on his own from Amsterdam through Germany to Prague and down to Jerusalem, a trip that had a big impact on his thinking. In the following year he became a minister in a town in northern Holland. After the Nazis took over their country and began rounding up Jews to be transported to concentration camps, Ader and his wife turned their home into a refuge, hiding Jews from the Nazis to save their lives. In 1944, he was discovered by the Gestapo, arrested, imprisoned, and then taken into the woods and shot. His son became a noted artist in California, and his work is haunted by his father’s fate.

Valentin Bulgakov, former secretary to Lev Tolstoy, was a prominent figure in the Russian emigre community in Prague. He carried on extensive correspondence with the broad literary community in Europe.

In 1933, at a time when Central Europe was gripped by ethnic and national tensions, Premysl Pitter founded a center in Prague that was open to all children. After the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia, seeing that Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend schools and take part in cultural activities, Pitter invited a number of them to his center; he would eventually provide them refuge. Arrested by the Gestapo, he somehow managed to get released and survived the war.

While on his great bicycle trip, Ader stopped in Prague to stay with Bulgakov. Both of the men sent Autograph Notes Signed, June 19, 1936, on a postcard to their common friend, Dutch minister and noted pacifist, Johannes Bernardus Th. Hugenholz. Ader starts out by remarking that “I thought it wise not to write to you from Germany. After a very busy time I went underway on my bicycle on the 5th of June and now I am in Prague with Valentin Bulgakov. Lots of greetings! Mr. Bulgakov would like to fill the rest of this card. Sincerely, B. J. Ader (Mr. Rubin was not at home!).” Bulgakov continued, mentioning Premysl Pitter. “I was very glad, dear friend, to see Ader, we shared some memories of you and then I showed him around Prague and escorted P. Pitter. I am only very sorry that you, dear friend Hugenholtz, did not come together with them.”

This is our first letter from a Christian martyred for trying to save Jews during the Holocaust and is an extraordinary rarity. It adds interest that it references a meeting, likely hitherto unknown, between Ader and Pitter, his colleague in the same cause.