[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 37 (Tuesday, April 9, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E471-E472]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IN HONOR OF THE MADNA FAMILY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, April 9, 2002

  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today, 
Holocaust Remembrance Day, to share a remarkable story and honor two 
true heroes of the Holocaust. On April 14, Congregation Adas Israel, a 
synagogue here in Washington, D.C., will add the name of the Madna 
family to its Garden of the Righteous Monument honoring people who 
rescued Jews during the Nazi occupation. Rob Madna will represent his 
family at the ceremony.
  During the war, the Madna family took in a nine-month old Jewish 
infant, Alfred Munzer, who was born November 23, 1941 in The Hague, 
capital of the then Nazi-occupied Netherlands, two weeks before Pearl 
Harbor, and two weeks before the United States declared war on Japan 
and Germany declared war on the United States.
  By September 1942, when it had become apparent that the Munzer family 
must go into hiding, baby Alfred was taken in by Indonesian neighbors, 
the family of Tole Madna. The Madna family cared for him when his 
parents and older sisters were deported. Their nanny, Mima Safna, cared 
for Alfred and three Madna children. Mima, a woman who could not read 
or write and who hardly spoke any Dutch, became Alfred's mother. She 
kept a knife under her pillow and vowed that if ever the Germans came 
to get the boy, she'd kill him and then herself. They called him Bobby, 
his ``schullnaam''--his name in hiding.
  Dr. Munzer's memories of life in the Madna house are happy ones. His 
toddler's view of the outside world was limited to what he could see by 
peaking through the mail slot in the front door. Even so, he found 
adventure hiding quietly in a small cellar under the stairs while the 
house was being searched by Nazi soldiers.
  Although his sisters tragically died in concentration camps and his 
father died a few months after the war ended, Alfred and his mother 
were reunited in August 1945 when he was just three and-half years old. 
Nanny Mima

[[Page E472]]

stayed with them for a short time until her death and Alfred and his 
mother came to the United States. He is currently is a physician 
specializing in diseases of the lung and is Director of the Pulmonary 
Medicine Department at Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, 
Maryland. He is also a past president of the American Lung Association.
  Little is known about Tole Madna and Mima's religious beliefs. Madna 
adopted Catholicism very late in life and Mima probably was Muslim. 
Neither had an advanced education. Neither had any great material 
wealth. But both had the ability to hear and answer a human need.
  They exemplified the meaning of righteousness. They were unwilling to 
ignore the cry of a nine month-old child.
  Mr. Speaker, please join me in honoring the memory of Tole Madna and 
Mima Saina, two true heroes of the Holocaust. Their story is a 
testament to the very best in human values.

                          ____________________