UNH President Ann Weaver Hart is hosting Micha Van Veldhuizen, a foreign exchange student from Holland. Micha’s grandparents saved Hart’s father after he was shot down over Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II. (Katelyn Dolan/UNH Media Relations)

An Exchange of Friendship
Program Unites President and Grandson of Couple who saved her Father During World War II

By John Reed, Media Relations

When UNH President Ann Weaver Hart’s father was shot down over Nazi-occupied Holland on July 7, 1944, the Van Harten family saved his life by opening their home to him and hiding him from German capture.

Three generations later, the Van Harten’s grandson, Micha Van Veldhuizen, has found a home on the UNH campus in Durham with Hart and her husband Randy, as part of a student exchange program required by his high school English language program in Holland.

“I’m so impressed that these people stood up to the Nazis to save my father. When I think about how many people who didn’t know him risked their lives to save him, I wonder if I would have had the courage to do the same for someone I didn’t know,” Hart said.
“Hosting this young man for a month was the least we could do when you consider what his family did for my father,” she said.

Lt. Ted Weaver, 1943.

Lt. Ted Weaver was hidden from July 7, 1944, until April 8, 1945, by various members of the Dutch underground who risked not only their own lives but the lives of their families in order to hide him.
In November 1944, after months of evading capture and changing locations, Lt. Weaver and another downed American airman came under the care of Micha’s grandparents, the Van Hartens, in the Dutch town of Nijverdal. Lt. Weaver spent the remainder of the war there until Canadian troops liberated the town.

“The pressures of living in this kind of situation were hard on everyone’s nerves. You didn’t know from one minute to the next whether the Germans would discover that the Dutch were hiding you and be taken captive or worse,” Lt. Weaver wrote in his personal account of his time in Holland.

In the decades after the war, both families have kept in touch and visited each other in Europe and the United States. Hart met Micha’s parents, the Van Veldhuizens, in the 1980s while they were vacationing in America.

“We took them off-roading in Canyonlands National Park in Utah,” Hart said.

The Van Harten Family. Pictured from left to right are Hank, Father, Annie, Ed, Mother and Dinj.

Hart and the Van Veldhuizens lost touch in the 1990s until this past winter when Micha’s mother found Hart during an Internet search.
“I needed to study in an English-speaking country and asked my mom if she knew anyone in an English speaking country. We looked up Ann on the Internet because I thought it would be pretty neat to see the states,” Micha said.

There was no doubt for the Harts about whether Micha should spend time with them in America. “Ann was very enthusiastic from the start. She even met me at the airport. She has made me feel very comfortable coming over here,” Micha said.

Since arriving in New Hampshire, the Harts have taken Micha to the Hockey East championships in Manchester where he enjoyed the game from the president’s box seats and met several VIPs. “It’s been really fun. He’s very comfortable in different social situations. He was adept in a conversation with UNH trustees, faculty and deans at our house,” Hart said.

As part of his study abroad experience, Micha is working at UNH’s Center for International Education as a way to improve his English skills through interaction with UNH students. Since he began working at CIE two weeks ago, Micha said his English has improved considerably. “I was searching for words at first, but now I’m much more comfortable,” he said.

Coincidentally, the Van Harten’s children often asked Hart’s father to speak to them in English so they could practice their English skills.

Micha, who has traveled throughout Europe and Indonesia, has enjoyed his first stay in America so much that he is considering college here.

“It’s great here. All the athletic facilities, the open space and the residence halls. In Holland everyone lives off-campus and there are no (university) sports teams,” he said.

He is proud of his grandparent’s role in hiding Lt. Weaver, which he only learned of when he found out that he would be staying with the Harts. “It makes me look at my grandmother in a different way because she has done all of these things,” Micha said.

And the Harts strongly encourage anyone to host an exchange student. “It gives you friends worldwide,” Hart said.