When you look at the photograph above, you may be forgiven for thinking that it is an image of a class of children doing arts and crafts at school. They are children doing arts and crafts, but it is not in a school (at least not a regular school) it is a group of children in Westerbork. Camp Westerbork may have seemed like a reasonable safe camp, but it probably was one of the most evil ones. There were no mass executions, no gas chambers. What made it so evil is it created false hope. Prisoners could do arts and crafts, cook dinners, play sports, it even a football competition, all to make the inmates think that things were not so bad. More than 107,000 Dutch Jews and other nationality Jews had fled Germany, Austria, and other places, and were deported from the Netherlands to extermination camps in Poland, where they were murdered. The majority of them were deported from Westerbork.
Three of those prisoners were the Davids children. Geertruida or Trudie Davids is the second girl on the left in the photo at the start.
She was born in Groningen, the Netherlands on 17 September 1931. She was murdered in Auschwitz on 7 October 1944. She reached the age of 13 years. She never had the chance to finish school, never had a first date, and was murdered for no reason. I know people will say she was murdered because she was Jewish, but to me, that is no reason.
Samuel Davids was born in Groningen on 14 December 1936. He was murdered in Auschwitz on 7 October 1944. He was 7 years old. No first school exam, no first kiss, no first beer. Murdered for no reason. Murdered by evil.
Lea Davids was born in Groningen on 29 April 1934. She was murdered at Auschwitz on 7 October 1944. She reached the age of 10 years. No first boyfriend, no last sleepover, Murdered for no reason. An evil regime wanted her—a 10-year-old—dead.
I have done thousands of these pieces, but the ones about young children all chip away at a bit of my heart. I am a parent of three children, and although they are adults now, I could not cope with losing any of them.
The mother of the Davids children was murdered together with her children. The father was murdered on 19 January 1945.
Kids making toys in Westerbork, Toys they never had the opportunity to play with or developed skills they were never able to use in later life.
Sources
https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/135662/geertruida-davids
https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/Geertruida-Davids/27/53049
https://map.stolpersteine.app/nl/groningen/locaties/taco-mesdagplein-10
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