History of Sorts

The title of this blog is a line from a song by the hip-hop group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. I chose it because it speaks a simple truth—a child does not know how to be evil.

The boy in the picture above is Samuel Siegfried Opdenberg. He was born on February 7, 1940, in Wildervank, a village in the Dutch province of Groningen. My heart sank when I learned that he was murdered in Auschwitz on November 23, 1942. He was only two years old.

I thought I had already felt the deepest sorrow, but then I discovered that little Samuel Siegfried had a baby brother.

Henry Opdenberg was born on April 4, 1942, also in Wildervank. Like his older brother, he was murdered in Auschwitz on November 23, 1942. He was only seven months old.

Both boys were killed alongside their mother, Henriette Veronica Opdenberg-Kooperberg. In the face of such unimaginable evil, there is at least a small comfort—they were not alone. They spent their final moments with someone who loved them.

A child is born with no state of mind, blind to the ways of mankind. Yet, among those who call themselves human, there were some who believed it was their duty to subject these two little angels to evil beyond belief.

Sources

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/122825/henry-opdenberg

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/122827/samuel-siegfried-opdenberg