Clara Asscher-Pinkhof

Clara Asscher-Pinkhof (1896–1984) was a Dutch children's writer best known for her stories about children in the Holocaust. Working as a teacher and writer for journals and magazines, Asscher-Pinkhof helped look after deported Jewish children and survived five months' imprisonment at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Early life She was born on 25 October 1896 in Amsterdam, one of eight children of doctor Hermanus Pinkhof and his wife Adele, née Beer. Her siblings included composer Miriam Shatal. Working as a teacher in the village of Deil, Clara began publishing nursery rhymes and songs in children's magazines.

In 1918, she published a collection of children's songs to help children connect with their Jewish heritage. In 1919, she married Rabbi Abraham Asscher, whom she had met while working at a Jewish children's charity, and moved to Groningen. They had six children. Abraham died in 1926, and Clara remained in Groningen, writing articles for newspapers.

World War II In 1940, when Germany invaded the Netherlands, Clara and her youngest child, fourteen-year-old Fieke, returned to Amsterdam, where Clara taught in the newly established Jewish schools. Clara wrote for Het Joodse Weekblad (The Jewish Weekly) journal and helped to look after children who were sent to the Joodse Schouwburg Theatre before deportation. The book was translated into several languages and won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German Children's Literature Award) in 1962.

In 1966 she wrote an autobiography, Danseres zonder benen (Dancer Without Legs).

Clara, who remarried in 1958, spent much of her later life in Palestine and died in 1984 in Haifa.