Auschwitz

  • Last Sunday I once again had the privilege to be invited and attended a presentation, organised by the Ghetto Fighters’ House museum, As before I was astounded how little I actually know about the Holocaust. This the the recording of that presentation and the explanation about the event. If the Wannsee Conference discussed plans to…

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  • Sonja would have been 80 today. But as the title suggests she was murdered when she was only 5 months old. She was the product of love between two people. Her parents were, Mother, Frederika van Amerongen-Veffer and her Father, Philip van Amerongen. Sonja’s Mother was a seamstress and her Father a butcher. Just regular…

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  • Sara Barmhartigheid

    There are times when I am so eager to tell the story of one of the Holocaust victims. But then there are times. like today, where I am happy that I don’t know anything more then just the name of a child. Because I know it would have broken my heart in millions of pieces.…

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  • I was going to write about a young boy called Jonas van Oosten. He was murdered in Auschwitz on January 16,1943, aged 16. When he was two years of age he won a kite competition. The kite was much bigger then himself. He proudly posed with his kite for a photograph, in front of a…

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  • Nathan Roozelaar& Eva Roozelaar-Hart, who were they? To be honest I know very little about them. All I know that they were both born in Amsterdam. Nathan on March 21,1887 and Eva on July 15,1887. At some stage they must have met because they got married, when I don’t know? I do know that Nathan…

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  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Amadeus, Goya’s Ghosts; Man on he Moon, these are some of my favourite movies. They were all directed by Miloš Forman. For two of them he received an academy award aka Oscar. That on its own is extraordinary, but it is nothing compared to Miloš’s story of his young…

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  • It is just a photo of a soldier with his family. One could easily dismiss this photograph as someone’s memory. A father who loved to smoke, a mother all dressed up and two well-dressed children—a boy and a girl. This photo could have easily been a picture of my grandfather with his family. Like the…

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  • Café Alcazar Amsterdam

    On 9 February 1941, members of the Dutch Nazi party, NSB, assisted by German soldiers, forced their way into the café-cabaret ‘Alcazar’ on Thorbeckeplein because Jewish artists were still performing there. This led to a brawl in which 23 people were injured. Clara de Vries was a jazz trumpet player. Her performance at Cabaret Alcazar…

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  • Everyone who was murdered in the Holocaust But murdering a 6 month old baby and a 2 year old toddler took a special kind of evil. The little boy Levy was born on February 6,1942. Just over 6 months later on August 23,1942 he was murdered in Auschwitz. His older sister, Frouwke(Dutch for little woman),who…

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  • The Steinbach Family

    The title of the blog is ‘The Steinbach Family’ but is really a blog about the Romani people. The reason why I picked the Steinba,ch family name is twofold. Firstly the picture at the start of the blog is of Settela Steinbach. It is one of the most iconic pictures of the Holocaust. Initially she…

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