Tineke Guilonard (pronounced /Teen-na-kah Ghee-yo-nahrr/) was an impressive young woman when Mies Boissevain got to know her Camp Vught and later Ravensbrück. It turned out that Tineke had been a part of CS-6, the militant resistance group of Mies’ sons. Not only did Tineke Guilonard survive the “Bunker Drama” in Vught, but a succession of other camps and death marches. Despite being haunted by the past, she became a famous sociologist who advocated for psychological help for children of the perpetrators of war crimes. She and her husband received the Yad Vashem award in 1983. Click on the link below to see an animated Ode to Tineke Guilonard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8-4yw2jVOk

Despite the tremendous loss and hardship women like Mies Boissevain and Tineke Guilonard had to endure, they were unbroken; “Mommy Mies” led women in wellness classes and massaged those who were in pain, while Tineke coped with the trauma of the Bunker Drama by “freezing” her nightmarish memories that she wouldn’t “thaw out” till after the war.

In the night of January 15, 1944, 74 women were crammed into “the bunker” or cell 115, which was less than 30 square feet. For 14 hours, they were forced to stand up while many were slowly going crazy due to the fumes of the freshly painted walls. When the door was finally opened, 10 women were dead. Even the SS did not approve.