Marion Pritchard

Marion Pritchard, born Marion van Binsbergen, 1920 in Amsterdam, is a Dutch-American social worker and psychoanalyst, who distinguished herself as a savior of Jews in the Netherlands during the Second World War. Pritchard helped save 150 Dutch Jews, most of them children, throughout the German Occupation.^[1][2] In addition to protecting these people's lives, she was imprisoned by Nazis, worked in collaboration with the Dutch resistance, and shot and killed a Dutch Nazi ^[1][2][3]

Marion Pritchard grew up in the Netherlands, the daughter of a liberal judge. At age 19, she enrolled in the school of social studies in Amsterdam. During her studies, she was arrested on suspicion of contact with the Dutch resistance movement and was imprisoned for seven months.

In the spring of 1942, Pritchard witnessed children, ages 2 to 8, being taken away by Nazis. ”I was shocked and in tears” ”and after that I knew my rescue work was more important than anything else I might be doing.” -Marion on her reaction to what she saw.^[3]

Pritchard first began her work as part of the Dutch underground, bringing food clothing and papers to those in hiding from the Nazis. Marion then took on more dangerous active when she was tasked with delivering a package to a home in northern part of the country. Along the journey, she was given a baby girl by a stranger. Upon reaching her destination she found out that the people she was supposed to deliver the package to had been arrested. She then took shelter with a man and his wife, originally not part of the operation, who agreed to take care of her and the baby.^[2]

Today, Marion Pritchard lives in a rural small town in Vermont where she and her late husband, Tony, raised three sons. She now works as a child psychoanalyst and is a former social worker.

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