
George Okker would have celebrated his 101st birthday on November 14,2022 . Although turning 101 is not that common, it is not that uncommon either.
However poor George Okker didn’t even reach his 20th birthday. There is quite a bit of data on George but strangely enough no photographs. The only pit of picture I could find was an entry of the open archive database of Amsterdam which gives his date of birth, birth place, date of death and where he was murdered.
George Okker went to the Ulo (=advanced primary education) where he learned French and English. He became an office clerk. He also was member of the banjo club.He was arrested in February 1941. He was part of a group of Jewish men that was arrested during the raid in Amsterdam. On the moment of his arrest he just was about to go fishing. He had no idea why he had to go with the men. He asked them if he was arrested because there was also war in the Dutch Indies(nowadays Indonesia) where he was born. George Okker was brought to camp Schoorl and then to Buchenwald and from there to Mauthausen.
There are two letters of George known. One of 1 August 1941 in which he wrote: ‘ich denke oft an Haus und an Homoet’.
Homoet was the baker in the Tweede Jansteenstraat 64-66. The second letter was from 31 August 1941. It was a very short one.
The family doctor notified George’s family that their son had died in Mauthausen on September 12,1941.
sources.
https://www.openarch.nl/kbd:ef1849e6-38d8-2f8c-dd13-dc5f53ead871
https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/persoon/112014/george-okker
Dirk, please translate ‘ich denke oft an Haus und an Homoet’.
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I often think of home and Hoemoet
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