Amsterdam

  • A Present for Millie

    Maurice Blik is a British sculptor and a former President of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. He is known for his figurative male sculpture. He was born in Amsterdam on 21 April 1939. Many pieces of his art were influenced by his experiences in Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp as a young child. His father

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  • Before I go into the story of Koenraad , I want to mention someone else. The 2 people are connected by the date January 29,1942. Clazina van Leeuwen-Menassen died on this date, she was a Jewish lady but she was spared the horrors of the camps, she died at the ripe old age of 100.

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  • Jacob de Mesquita

    I look at the picture of Jacob de Mesquita and I ask myself “How was this possible?” How was it possible that this baby was selected to be send to the gas chambers? Was there not one person among the Auschwitz staff members who thought that this was wrong? Was there no one who saw

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  • Simon Herman van den Bergh would have been 80 today. He would have reached 960 months today. He would have reached 29,200 days today, plus an additional 20 days if you include leap years. But Simon Herman van den Bergh didn’t even reach 2 years. He didn’t even reach 19 months. He was born on

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  • Hans Weinberg would have celebrated his 101st birthday today. Although there is not that much data on Hans, and the data which is available his very clinical, it does illustrate the horrors of the Holocaust. Hans was born on November 22,1921 in Amsterdam He was murdered-although some may say died- on November 30,1943 in Dorohucza

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  • There are no pictures of Michel Polak and Mirjam Brilleman. There is only a picture of one the place they were murdered. Auschwitz and more then likely Auschwitz-Birkenau. There are no pictures of the 2 children because they were born on November 20,1941 in Amsterdam. The Nazis already had a tight grip on Dutch society

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  • Edward Jonas Ossendrijver was born on November 8,1941. Today would have been his 80th birthday. On his 10th birthday he may have listened to Cold, Cold Heart, sung by Tony Bennett which was released that day. On his 20th birthday he may have heard about the Imperial Airlines Flight 201/8, a Lockheed Constellation aircraft, which

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  • Like Anne Frank ,Etty (Esther) Hillesum, also kept a diary during World War 2,describing her experiences of the Holocaust. She was born in the city of Middelburg in the southwest of the Netherlands, on January 15,1914. She was the daughter of Levie Hillesum and Riva Bernstein. In 1932 she moved to Amsterdam to study law

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  • It is strange sometimes how one thing can draw your attention to another. I did a piece recently on the German national anthem, that led me to look at the Dutch national anthem. “Wilhelmus van Nassouwe”, usually known just as “Wilhelmus” is the national anthem of the Netherlands. It dates back to at least 1572,

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  • The saying goes “Behind Every Great Man There Is A Great Woman” but of course it can also be said that behind every great woman there is a great man. The Anne Frank foundation said about Miep Gies’s husband. “Jan was not a person to stand in the limelight, not even amid all the publicity

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