MED BIZ | Cycle v Wheelchair - The Alinker™

The bicycle, it seems, originated in 1817
 in Germany as a running aid. The Germans
 never loved it as much as the Dutch. 

I am at the Social Venture Network conference in Baltimore and there is a new invention on display here, the Alinker™. I have tried it out and it works.

It looks a lot like the very first bicycle, invented nearly 200 years ago.

It's being positioned as a medical device–a replacement for the wheelchair. It is useful for people who can still walk but need assistance because their legs are weak. It provides mobility while not reducing the patient to total dependence. It provides mobility but doesn't end exercise.

It's like the difference between assisted living and a nursing home. A big difference...

Hobby horse with morris dancers.

I like the walking cycle for three reasons:

First, it keeps its users more active than a wheelchair.

Second, it allows the users to socialize more easily because they are upright.

Third, it is simpler than a motorized wheelchair and promises to be much cheaper, which matters a lot when we look down the road at looming medical costs for elderly people.

The new invention even shares the yellow color of the original walking cycle.

The First Bicycles

The Penny Farthing

I confess to a bias in favor of bicycles. I've been writing about them frequently over the years–for example, here.

• They are so darned efficient.
• Their concept is so simple. The original bicycle was a running cycle, with no pedals or chains or even brakes. Without pedals, the cycle doesn't go fast enough on level ground to need brakes–you stop the same way you stop running.
• The early name for the running cycles was a "hobby horse", such as were used by morris dancers (see drawing) in England.
• My Dutch relatives were pioneers in use of the bicycle in that country.

Innovations

The major innovation in the 19th century was the addition of pedals.

After some experimentation, the penny-farthing bicycle became the most popular shape.

My great-grandfather Charles Boissevain is said to be the first person to bring a penny-farthing to Holland, a country that quickly cottoned on to it.

Germany, which was the origin of the first bicycle, never became a great user of it in the 1920s when it became the rage in Holland. Perhaps it was because the German landscape is more mountainous than Holland's. Germany was also deeply disoriented by the onerous reparations of the Versailles treaty at the beginning of the decade and the Crash of 1929 at its end and had no disposal income to spend on new ideas.

The 19th century bicycle had two serious problems:

• The hard wheels made a "bone-shaker" of a ride.
• The potential for the bicycle to get up some speed without a corresponding brake made it dangerous.

The Safety Bicycle

The Alinker™ in use.

The "safety bicycle" developed in the 20th century changed the shape back to two even wheels and added four things:

• A chain to shift the force from the pedal to the back wheel and allowing the pedal to be located between the two wheels, which made the bicycle much safer.
• Gears to control the revolutions of the pedal that were required per distance traveled.
• Rubber wheels and inner tubes filled with air, providing a smooth ride.
• A brake, either a back-pedaling mechanism or (better) calipers on the handles.

During World War II when gasoline was scarce, the bicycle was a transportation godsend for the Dutch people.

The tricycle has in recent decades been rediscovered in communities with many elderly people, where it can be used for recreation when a bicycle is too arduous, or for travel over short distances – to do shopping, walk a dog or meet with friends.

The 21st Century Alinker™

Your blogger on the Alinker™with its inventor, Barbara
Alink. I took it for a spin at the Social Venture Network
Conference in Baltimore. Photo by Alice Tepper Marlin.

The brand-new Alinker™ invention has three main differences from the original bicycle. The color, at least for the prototypes, is the same, but:

• It uses the tricycle approach for the elderly as has been rediscovered in Florida, with two wheels in front.
• It uses pneumatic tubes on the wheels for a smoother ride.
• It is shaped more like the later 19th century penny-farthing cycles, with the larger wheels in front for maneuverability. The small turning radius is equivalent to that of a wheelchair, so that it can be used indoors.

The most interesting feature of the Alinker™ is that it can be used indoors like a wheelchair.

Its simplicity means that once in full production the price can be brought down and it could compete on price as well as function with the wheelchair in cases where people need support but have use of their legs for propulsion.

Right now the price is $2,000. For further information go to www.thealinker.com, or email info@thealinker.com.

WW2 | 10. Other Family in the Resistance (Updated Feb. 16, 2015)

Related chapters (see outline):
6. The Brave CS6 - Jan "Canada" Boissevain, Mies & Sons Janka and Gi.
8.  Hiding Jews - Bob Boissevain, Sonia, and Their Six Children.

9.  Financing the Resistance - Wally, Tilly, Gi, Frits and Maurits van Hall.

Other Close Relatives

Harry Boissevain's Sisters

My parents in 1972 contacted Harry Boissevain (NP 60, 63), who sent a letter back in January 1973 with the following interesting lead:

During the Nazi Occupation I lived in Arnhem and Enschede. Two of my sisters were the secretaries of General van Mook who headed up the Dutch underground in Amsterdam but they have steadily refused to write about their hair-raising experience.

Harry had nine siblings, six of them sisters, of whom four lived till the war. So two of the following four sisters might have been General Hubertus van Mook's secretaries: Ellegonda Duranda Boissevain Veltman (1914-1943), Marie Renée Boissevain (1922-1988), Louisa Maria Antonia Boissevain (1924-), and Dr. Mia Boissevain (1926-). See NP 60-61. There is information in Erik Schaap's biography of Wally van Hall (2nd edition, 2014) about Marie Renée (Iet) Boissevain, but the name of the second secretary is a mystery.

General van Mook was Minister for the Colonies in Indonesia. He returned to organize a Dutch government in preparation for the end of the war. One of his tasks was to prepare plan for greater Indonesian independence.

Most of the Dutch public, as expressed through the underground papers, favored making concessions to Indonesian independence. Only Trouw (Bride) tried to hang on to the prewar status ante quo.

Thea Boissevain

Louis's sister Theodora Margaretha Boissevain (Thea, 1917-, NP 128) spent time in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. [Need more information.]

Evert Hissink

Petronella (Nella) Boissevain Hissink (1881-1956, NP 69) wrote to her sister Olga, my grandmother, about her son Evert, who refused to sign the oath of loyalty to Hitler:

Ever since we heard that you lost your dear Willem, my thoughts and prayers have often been with you. You see, Evert [her eldest son] also will never come back. He was such a noble, independent, loving man; he was a rock, always to be trusted. He was three weeks away from getting his degree from Amsterdam University. Then the Germans wanted him to sign an affidavit of loyalty. Evert refused. He was taken to a work camp in Germany. Half a year later, he was killed by a bomb in Berlin.

More Distant Relatives of the Boissevains

The van Marles

Hilda de Booy's daughter Olga de Booy, named after my grandmother, Hilda de Booy's sister, married a van Marle. The Yad Vashem recognizes Mijndert van Marle (November 12, 1888-?) and Johanna Bosbeen van Marle (1894-?) who were married in 1915, as Righteous Gentiles who have been shown to have hidden a Jewish target of the Nazis.

The Marlins became a good friend of one of the van Marle branches, but it does not seem to be closely related to the two van Marles recognized by Yad Vashem. Olga van Marle was my mother's contemporary.

Our Granny Olga Boissevain van Stockum had made a pact with her sister Hilda Boissevain de Booy that they would name their daughters after each other. So the next generation had a Hilda van Stockum, our Mother, and an Olga de Booy, who married a van Marle. The third generation did the same thing so we had Olga Marlin and a Hilda van Marle. Hilda van Marle named a daughter Olga, but Olga Marlin did not have biological children (though she had many babies in Kenya named after her by their mothers who had been pupils of Olga) and Brigid Marlin only had boys...

My sister Brigid Marlin became friends after the war with the younger sister of Hilda van Marle, Henriette. (There also was a boy just under the age when he would have had to go to a labor camp in Germany.) Brigid said in an email to me in 2014: 

Although Henriette was 16 and I was only 11, we became great friends, because we both loved to create things and invent stories and plays. Looking back, I think that Henriette needed to reclaim her childhood, which was taken away by the terrible war. So we had a marvelous time together, because I stayed with Henriette who lived in a house like a castle and seemed to me like a fairy princess! We kept up the friendship for years, and Henriette came to stay when we both had children. Sadly, she has died. 

Henri and Marguerite van Eeghen

Henri and Marguerite van Eeghen appear in the Yad Vashem list of Righteous Gentiles. Maria Boissevain (1869-1959), the eldest daughter of Charles Boissevain (1842-1931) and therefore my mother's aunt, married Cornelis van Eeghen (1861-1940). However, there is no Henri among their descendants. The Henri van Eeghen must therefore be a distant relative.

Baron Otto Maximiliaan and Ursula Cunera van Boetzelaar and their Housekeeper Nicolasina Kerkhof van Vugt

Baron Otto van Boetzelaar and Lex van B?

Dina Frank (later Oppenheimer) graduated from Amsterdam’s Jewish secondary school just before the German invasion of Holland. Her physician father, Dr. Benjamin Frank, was arrested by the Gestapo in August 1942 and was deported to Auschwitz, where he died.

On September 7, 1942, Dina was given the address of Baron Otto van Boetzelaer and his wife Ursula, who lived at Zwanenburg, an old country home near Dinther, North Brabant.

Dina’s mother, Julie Frank Vecht (later Gomperts), and her brother Rudolf, initially remained in Amsterdam, but on May 28, 1943, they joined Dina at the estate. The Jewish writer Leonard de Vries, a friend of Dina’s from Amsterdam, also hid there. 

Ursula Cunera van
Boetzelaar

Otto, respected in the community, lived reclusively, thus reducing the likelihood of discovery. Only a few very close neighbors knew of the presence of Jews in the house and none betrayed them. Otto and Ursula prepared a hiding place under the stairs, where the Jewish guests hid during a German search. The van Boetzelaers’ young housekeeper, Nicolasina ("Toos") Kerkhof van Vugt was helpful to those in hiding. 

Otto thought of Dina as his own daughter. Julie Frank paid a small sum towards her and her children’s upkeep, but Otto and Ursula’s motives for rescuing them were humanitarian and religious. 

The van Boetzelaers had two sons. One was active in the Resistance and  was caught and executed by the Germans. The other lived in Utrecht. Allied paratroopers liberated the Franks and Leonard de Vries in September 1944.  (More detail from db.yadvashem.org/righteous.)

Sources and Resources:

Amsterdam Stadsarchief, visited February 17, 2015.

Boissevain, Charles, emails especially January-February 2015.

NIOD, visited February 18, 2015.

Schaap, Erik. Walraven van Hall: Premier van Het Verzet (Walraven van Hall: Prime Minister of the Resistance),  Inmerc, 2006. 2nd edition, 2014. Dutch language only. The price is a reasonable €24.95 but it cost me an additional €45 plus €4 tax to have it sent to the United States.

Other Chapters

The above post is a draft chapter of the book. For the full outline go here: How Dutch Families Fought the Nazis