The address of Bloemenmarkt 7, will mean anything to most of you. It probably doesn’t mean that much to some of the people in Geleen. It was the address of a butcher shop and apartment, in a square, in the suburbs Lindenheuvel in Geleen. the Netherlands.
Today it is the home of a dog grooming business, Trimsalon Anjing.
When I was growing up, I passed that place hundreds of times. There used to be a pub and event hall around the corner where my mother had her wedding reception. It took my moving to Ireland to discover the historical significance of that particular address. I will illustrate this by telling the story of the two sisters— Ilse and Helena Roer and their extended family.
Ilse and Helena were both born in Zülpich, Germany. Ilse on 20 February 1925m and Helena on 14 September 1921.
Father Max Roer was born on 29 October 1886 in Zülpich, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He married Jennie Baum from Bauchem in 1920 and was a butcher (‘Metzgermeister’) by trade. He died in Zülpich on 9 March 1932 in Zulpich.
Two of their mother’s half-brothers, Max and Karl Baum, settled in Geleen on the Bloemenmarkt (Flower Market) in May 1937, followed a month later, by Jennie Roer-Baum and the teenagers Leni and Ilse. The mother’s sister, Henriette Moses-Baum had already settled in Geleen with her family in 1934, and her other sister Johanna Gottschalk-Baum, and her family, emigrated to Valkenburg in 1938. Max and Karl’s two brothers, Bernhard and Albert, emigrated to America in 1938.
The Baum family took over the Gijzen butcher shop on the Bloemenmarkt, established in 1929. Shortly after arriving in Geleen, Max, Karl and Jennie opened their beef, pork, and lamb butchery as partners on 15 May 1937, under the trade name ‘Gebr. Baum’ and registered with the Chamber of Commerce in Heerlen.
On 2 January 1939, the Baum grandparents were registered at the Bloemenmarkt. Grandpa Samuel died a few months after the outbreak of war, on 11 October 1940, aged 78. He and Grandma Sophie then lived in Burg. Lemmensstraat 225 (I grew up at 141). After his death, Grandma moved in with her children at the Bloemenmarkt.
Uncle Max married Gerta Kaufmann from Waldenrath in 1941, who moved into the Bloemenmarkt.
Helena (nicknamed Leni) and Ilse Roer were part of the first group of Jews who were transported via Maastricht to Westerbork camp and from there to Auschwitz under the guise of ‘Arbeitseinsatz’ on 25 August 1942. Leni was gassed upon arrival. Ilse was initially spared by being employed as a tailor. She died on 2 October 1942 on the “Kasernenstraße” in Auschwitz, according to the Auschwitz death register of influenza.
Mother Jennie and Uncle Karl went into hiding in Tegelen. Grandma Sophie, Uncle Max, and Aunt Gerta were deported to Camp Vught in April 1943 and later to Westerbork. Grandma died in November 1943 in Bergen-Belsen. Max and Gerta worked as forced labourers in Auschwitz. Max died there on 31 March 1944; Gerta survived Auschwitz and was liberated by the Russians in April 1945.
Mother Jennie, Uncle Karl, Aunt Henriette and Henriette’s two children survived the war. In 1947 they emigrated to the United States and the butchery was passed on to the Metsemakers family. Jennie Roer-Baum died in America on 6 November 1969.
I often bought meat in the Metsemakers butcher shop.
The photograph above was taken of Ilse Roer and her classmates in 1938, at a school in Geleen. That is how close the Holocaust still is, there are still addresses with a history—histories that need to be told.
Below is a small poem I wrote for the forgotten Jews of Geleen a few years ago.
You are not different from me.
You eat the same food.
You read the same books.
But yet you are not free.
You are not free because of someone’s idea of you.
You are given a yellow star.
You are catalogued and numbered like cattle.
But yet you’re not an animal but a human too.
You are being killed in the vilest of ways.
You are a man, a woman, a child, a parent.
You are erased as if you were never here.
But yet you are remembered on many days.
You are not different to me but you are also not the same.
You are merely a number and a name on a list.
You are not listened to for you have no voice
But I pledge I will shout for you in loud acclaim.
Sources
https://simonwiesenthal-galicia-ai.com/swiggi/lx/nl/76896
https://www.stolpersteinesittardgeleen.nl/Slachtoffers/Ilse-Roer
https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/151700/helena-roer
History of Sorts 