I have 3 children and I witnessed the birth of all 3 of them. The birth of a child must be the greatest miracle, Sure the sex beforehand is wonderful, but just imagine it, a sperm cell from a fertile man swims up through the vagina and into the uterus of a woman and joins with the woman’s egg cell as it travels down one of the fallopian tubes from the ovary to the uterus.
This is when the baby is conceived. There is no better moment in a parent’s live to see that first glimpse of the tiny human being, a product of a sexual act and love of 2 people. Seeing their baby for the first time and the feeling that goes with is something which is impossible to describe. The only word that gets close is a miracle.
But what if that baby is born in captivity and you are not sure how long the child will live, or indeed how long you will live, how does that feel? It is something no one wants to experience, yet it was a reality for many people.
The picture above is of Marie Majerowicz she was born in Camp Westerbork.
Camp Westerbork was a concentration and transit camp in Drenthe province, north east of the Netherlands.Established by the Dutch government in the summer of 1939, Camp Westerbork was meant to serve as a refugee camp for Germans and Austrians (German and Austrian Jews in particular), who had fled to the Netherlands to escape Nazi persecution.
But after the Nazis occupied the Netherlands ,the camp was repurposed and was utilized as a staging ground for the deportation of Jews, from 1942 to 1945. Only one-half square kilometer (119 acres) in area, the camp was not built for the purpose of industrial murder as were Nazi extermination camps. Westerbork was considered by Nazi standards as “humane”. Jewish inmates with families were housed in 200 interconnected cottages that contained two rooms, a toilet, a hot plate for cooking, and a small yard. Single inmates were placed in oblong barracks which contained a bathroom for each sex.
Marie Majerowicz was born in camp Westerbork on December 30,1942. In September 1944 she was deported to Theresienstadt from where, on 6 October 1944, she was deported to Auschwitz. She was murdered in a gas chamber after selection. She was not even 2 yet.
Marie wasn’t the only child born in Westerbork. Most of the children died or were murdered when they were still babies. Some only lived for a few days.
Abraham Moritz Benjamins, born February 21,1943. Murdered in Auschwitz October 8,1943.
Tine Bloemendaal, born April 30 1943. Died in Westerbork June 5,1943.
Emanuel Snatager. born May 9,1942. Died in Westerbork May 26,1943.
Karin Walg,born June 19, 1943. Died in Westerbork, June 23,1943.
Bernard Gosschalk, born December 21,1942. Murdered in Auschwitz October 26,1943.
Benjamin Vleeschhouwer, born August 10,1943. Died in Westerbork October 26,1943.
These were just a few. There are so many and to be honest I don’t think I can go through all of their details, my heart just can’t take it.
Aside from the human cost and the sheer evil and horror of it. So much potential talent has been lost. Who know, the scientist who discovered a cure for all cancers could be one of these children. We will never know just because of the warped ideology of Nazism.
sources
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1066255
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