History of Sorts

The definition of ‘one in a million’ is : a person or thing that is very unusual, special, or admired.

Herman Wertheim was certainly that. However, sadly he was also one in six million. He was one of the six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.

Herman Wertheim was born on February 17, 1912 in Strijp, the Netherlands . He was the eldest son of Hester and Jacob Wertheim. Herman worked as a tobacco trader for A. J. van Beek in Rotterdam.

Herman married Esther Rosenfeld from Amsterdam on August 4, 1936.

The first child, a daughter whom they called Margaretha Beatrix, died as an infant on 6 February 1938. In 1939 a son was born: Jaap.

During the war, the family went into hiding, all three in different places. Son Jaap is brought to Laren in 1942 at the age of three. He is taken in by…