History of Sorts

When I was younger, in my late teens, one of my uncles took his own life. I was devastated, not just because I was very fond of my uncle but because I never faced a situation like that. I didn’t know if there was anything I could do. Also, the fact that I had the same first name as my uncle didn’t help the situation. A few people thought it was me who committed suicide.

At the time, I thought it was a very selfish act. Now that I am older, I know I was wrong in thinking that. I now know it was an act of desperation.

It was the same desperation that Emma Marie Zeehandelaar felt (although she had even greater despair than my uncle). On 16 May 1940, she decided to end the lives of her two sons—Robert Willem Swart age 6 (in the above photograph) and Johannes Frans Age Swart, age 7. In her note, she wrote, “The Germans are here and all of us know no other solution than to put an end to it. Sometimes it’s harder to live than to die.”

Emma was not alone in that decision. Shortly after the German invasion of the Netherlands, there was a wave of suicides. In the first month of the war, hundreds of people, mainly Jewish, decided not to wait for the future under German rule and took their own lives. Some did this alone, others with their partner or family. The number of suicides in the first month of the war was five times higher than the May average in other years. Even after that, Jews who saw no way out of deportation—committed suicide.

Not all of these deaths would have been included in the number of Holocaust deaths.

Source

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/thema/Zelfmoordgolf%20mei%201940

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