Jack Boeki

Prepared by the Witnesses of War team

Jack Boeki was born Isaac Boeki on 31 May 1924 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to Jacob Boeki and Leentje Berkelouw. He grew up with two older sisters, Hanna and Leentje, known as Lea. The German bombing of Rotterdam in May 1940 destroyed the family’s home and livelihood. As anti-Jewish persecution intensified, Jack went into hiding, beginning a series of escapes that would take him across occupied Europe.

Using false identity papers, Jack repeatedly evaded arrest. On one occasion, while being transferred toward Westerbork, he escaped amid the crowds at Amsterdam Central Station after helping unload luggage. He eventually reached France under the assumed name Piet Lutger, surviving further arrests and finding shelter through people connected to the resistance. Jack later recounted ten escapes from Nazi capture.

In France, underground contacts introduced him to agents of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). They arranged his passage to Britain and subsequently to the United States for military training. He became an agent of the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), returning to Europe in 1944. On 8 June 1944, two days after D-Day, his team landed on Utah Beach in Normandy.

Following the Allied advance through Western Europe, Jack worked to identify and arrest spies, collaborators and suspected Nazi war criminals. After Germany’s defeat, his duties included security work connected with the Nuremberg war-crimes trials. The young man once pursued because he was Jewish now helped bring Nazi perpetrators to justice.

His survival came with devastating loss: both parents and both sisters were murdered at Sobibor in April 1943. After the war, Jack rebuilt his life in Canada, settling in Montreal in 1951. Through interviews, public appearances and his memoir, From Fugitive to Freedom, he has preserved the story of his escape, military service and murdered family.