Boyd Klap CNZM, QSO, COON, COM

Jewish Lives spoke to the man who is the Chairman of Anne Frank NZ, the organisation which has orchestrated the travelling exhibition remembering Anne Frank in NZ and Australia, and which is about to complete its 40th successful exhibition.

by Val Graham

Boyd Klap, now aged 95, was 13 years old when the Second World War broke out. Holland had declared its neutrality for the conflict, as it had been in World War I, and it fully expected that its neutrality would be respected. A number of German Jews fled from Germany to friends in Holland who would give them shelter.

The Germans then invaded Holland, and Queen Wilhelmina and her government set up a government in exile in London.

Day-to-day life changed dramatically for the Dutch people: Jews were removed from their posts; neighbours began to be taken away; Nazi sympathisers and collaborators were placed into key administrative positions.

At Boyd’s school, the Principal was replaced by an SS officer who would come into the office each morning, placing his pistol on the desk. It was not long before Boyd was called before him for having written on a classroom blackboard that the Allies would win the war and he was expelled from the school. After that event, Boyd’s parents would lie awake waiting for the ‘night visit’ from the SS but, thankfully, the knock on the door never came.

Boyd was aware of people being taken away: neighbours such as a young Jewish couple with a child whose windows were broken, their house daubed with swastikas and foul slogans, who had to report to the Nazi administration one morning and were never seen again; the Rector of the local girls’ Gymnasium college who was taken away with all the girls witnessing and wailing in distress.

Boyd’s girlfriend’s family, initially unbeknown to him, were harbouring a German Jew named Gunter Rose. He sensed something was amiss, but it was a while before they trusted him enough to share their deadly secret. His girlfriend, Ria, slept with her mother so that when the house was searched Gunter would hide in the ceiling and she would jump into the warm bed - the Germans could not find a warm bed with no occupant. Gunter made it through to the end of the war, as did his mother.

Most of those in hiding were being sheltered by people who knew them: friends, business contacts. They were in great danger for doing so – they took a huge risk and saved lives. There were many collaborators and traitors who would give people away, but those who sheltered people were committed to freedom and against Nazism.

As well as witnessing the general brutality of the Nazi occupation, sometimes it got frighteningly close. People they knew, such as his girlfriend Ria’s own stepfather, were tortured and then executed.

Boyd also came to be on the receiving end of the brutality. One day, around 1943-44, when he and his friend were standing on a street corner, a senior Dutch collaborator stopped to ask where the nearest florist shop was. They knew that he was on his way to attend the funeral of a Dutch collaborator who had been appointed a minister in the Nazi cabinet, shot by the underground resistance. Boyd, defiantly unwilling to help, replied that he did not know of any florists. He was hit in the face and suffered a bloody nose. A nearby General who had witnessed this stepped in and asked Boyd how long he had lived in the town. When Boyd replied that he had always lived there, the General pulled his pistol and ordered him to run. Boyd knew instinctively that he probably wouldn’t get very far if he did run. He continued to face the General, walking away backwards until he was at a distance, and in doing so he likely saved his life.

Unsurprisingly, that defiance led Boyd to join the underground resistance at age 17, as a courier. He received the War Cross from the Dutch government for his service, and was also later decorated with the Cross of Merit in September 2021 by the Federal Republic of Germany. There won’t be too many folk around who have been decorated by both sides of the conflict, jokes Boyd.

Seeing people being treated so inhumanely galvanised Boyd into becoming a life champion for anti-discrimination and anti-bullying. He hopes that we will learn lessons from the past about treating people with humanity, respect and equality.

After the War, Boyd was commissioned in the Dutch army as a young lieutenant in 1948. He went to Indonesia but did not see himself there long-term, and moved to New Zealand in 1951 with Ria, now Mrs Klap. Although he studied agriculture he joined the insurance industry, becoming CEO of T&G and then Prudential NZ and the Life Offices Association. Boyd Chaired the NZ Police Superannuation Fund, the reverse mortgage company Sentinel and Partners Life insurance company.

In his business life he is proud of his record promoting diversity and inclusion, appointing women into senior roles, and was party to the change of policy allowing women members at the Wellington Club.

Boyd first became involved with the Anne Frank exhibition through Inge Woolf, who was one of the originators of the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand. Inge originally rang Boyd to ask if he would be prepared to guide a visitor from Holland to establish the first Anne Frank Exhibition. That was supposed to be a 3 month assignment, but the involvement stretched out somewhat and Boyd recently clocked up 13 years!

Anne Frank would have been two years younger than Boyd, but instead was murdered at the age of 15 in Bergen-Belsen. Her diary, first published in 1947, is in the top 10 most-read books in the world, available in 72 languages. Boyd was instrumental in having Anne’s diary translated and published in Te Reo for what should have been Anne’s 90th year.

In her diary, Anne outlines her day-to-day challenges; thoughts and dreams of her life ahead; wanting to be a mother and an author; the daily routines of her family’s two years and two months - 761 days - in hiding. An added challenge was that, of course, no-one knew how long the war would continue. Churchill had said that the war would be over ‘when the leaves fall’, but he didn’t promise what year.

Boyd says Anne is also remembered for the way she dealt with extreme hardship. Recently we have all experienced the feeling of being at home for long periods over covid lockdown. However, our challenges pale into insignificance when we consider what those in hiding also had to deal with: the constant fear of discovery; not being able to go out of doors at all; not being able to go near a window lest you be noticed; not being able to make any noise whatsoever, not even to flush the toilet, would have made life unbearably difficult. The life of those in hiding must have been immensely stressful, tense, always on edge.

Boyd, along with his organisation, Anne Frank NZ, was instrumental in marking Anne’s life with a memorial to commemorate the life of Anne and of 1.5 million Jewish children who were killed in the Holocaust at Ellice Park in Wellington. 90 Kowhai trees were planted at the site: 15 trees to represent each year of Anne’s short life and 75 for the years that she might have had. The ceremony was held in June 2021, a few days after what would have been Anne’s 92nd birthday, and was attended by Rt Hon Grant Robertson MP, the Dutch Ambassador and Wellington’s Mayor.

The exhibition on Anne Frank’s life, Let me be myself, allows you to experience the Anne Frank story for yourself. More than 500,000 visitors have come to see the exhibitions, including more than 200,000 students.

Boyd says he often goes incognito to the exhibitions to gauge the reactions of attendees. He says most of the time it is ‘just silence’. Occasionally he has witnessed tears or more extreme reactions, as people are moved by Anne’s story. Importantly, people get an insight into Anne’s life and some understanding of what an inspiration she was and still is.

“It’s about commemorating her life, and our hope to live in a way that we have learnt from the past.”

Boyd with the Governor General, Sir Anand Satyanand after receiving his honours.

Boyd Klap, CNZM, QSO, COON, COM

In 2016 Boyd was awarded a high Royal Decoration of the Kingdom of the Netherlands – Commandeur in the Order of Orange-Nassau, for strengthening relationships between NZ & the Netherlands.

Boyd was made a Companion of the Order of Merit in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2011 for services to business and the community. He had previously been awarded Companion of the Queen’s Service Order in 1993 for services to the community.

Boyd was also a semi-finalist for Senior New Zealander of the Year 2022.

The Anne Frank exhibition, Let me be myself, will be at Rotorua District Library from 4 August 2022; at Parliament in Wellington from 3 November 2022.

Boyd Klap CNZM, QSO, COON, COM