De Hartog’s love of the sea never diminished. At one point after the war, he and his wife made their home in a 90-foot barge they converted into a houseboat. They used the houseboat as a floating hospital to aid Dutch flood victims in 1953, an experience chronicled in the 1972 film “The Little Ark,” starring Theodore Bikel.
De Hartog gained fame as a playwright in the United States after the war, with his romantic comedy “The Fourposter.” It debuted on Broadway in 1951, starring the real-life married couple of Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn, ran for 632 performances, and earned a Tony Award for best play for the year. Subsequently de Hartog moved to Texas, where he taught playwriting at the University of Houston.
In the meantime, “Skipper Next to God” also made it to Broadway – and Hollywood. It was performed on Broadway in 1948, directed by Lee Strasberg and starring John Garfield. In 1953, “Skipper” was made into a movie.
The New York Times, reviewing the Broadway version, was not enthusiastic about “Skipper” as a play but argued that it “deserves to be produced” because of its “high-minded” purpose in showing that during the Holocaust years, “in America no one doubts that morally the Jews should be admitted, but everyone comfortably hides behind the letter of the law” in keeping them out.
Jan de Hartog, who passed away in 2002, was never recognized for risking his life to save Jewish children from the Nazis. The time has come for him to receive that long overdue recognition.
