Christina Elisabeth Cramer

Story told by Claudia Zelmans-Fleri in 2010. Christina Elisabeth Cramer was the second wife of Frederik Stork. Frederik was 30 years older than Christina when they married. They had one daughter Margaretha Henriette Cornelia Stork (Meta). Christina was the youngest one, and only girl, from a family of 4 children. Her father was a general of the Dutch army and despite this martial environment all the children became bohemians. Christina was very much an artist playing very well the violin and was very talented in drawing caricatures of famous people. She used to do those caricatures in the coffee shops in St Germain in Paris. She and Frederik stayed a couple of years together. Meta was born during that period. Meta was born in Hilversum, Holland in 1921 and in 1922 her parents were divorced. As Frederik would have liked to have the guard of Meta, Christina had to fight to preserve her mother’s right over the child. The guard discussion went to court. A first judgment during the divorce gave the responsibility on Meta to Frederik so Christina had to escape with Meta illegally and disappeared for a while in Europe and the USA. The story came out in the newspaper at that time and Christina was accused of kidnapping. Obviously in the 20s it was not easy for a woman to defend her rights even more when the father’s name was Stork. After a while there has been a second judgment (even the queen has had to interject for Christina) that gave final responsibility on Meta to Christina. Meta and her mother were living in France when the war started being first in Paris and then moved to the French free zone in the south of France. When the Germans occupied the free zone, foreigners had to go back to their home country so Chistina and Meta went back to Amsterdam in 1944. That period is remembered as very dark time as Holland was suffering from the occupation and the population was starving. Meta used to always recall the story when they were hiding Jews and even one day they had the Germans coming to the home and a Jew was hidden in a special cache in the apartment board. Meta has always lived with her mother until Christina’s death. My grandmother Christina died in February 1974 in Zutphen Holland she was 83 years old.We miss her verry much!..