Poland

  • The title is about Jacques Swaluw but it really is about just more than Jacques. Jacques was born in Rotterdam on the 19th of June 1942. Esther Swaluw was the daughter of Isaäc Swaluw and Maria Melkman. On 2 December 1913, she married Izak van Been in Rotterdam, a son of Abraham van Been and…

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  • It is an old Dutch tradition that you send a little card to friends and neighbours to announce the birth of a baby. As did Izak Vredenburg and Ganna Vredenburg-Hirsch. They must have been delighted to announce the birth of their baby boy Samuel Juda Vredenburg. He was born in Amsterdam on 24 July 1942.…

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  • During World War II, Jewish citizens in the Netherlands were isolated and subjected to discrimination and persecution by the National Socialists and their associates. Most of them did not survive the war. More than 102,000 Jews from the Netherlands were deported and murdered during the Holocaust. One of the most compelling pieces of evidence to…

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  • The most beautiful announcement any parent can make, is the announcement of the birth of a child. Mary Louise van der Horst-Beerenborg and Abraham Arthur van der Horst. must have been so proud when they put a notification in the Jewish weeklu(Het Joodsche Weekblad) on September 4.1942 that their son Hartog was born on August…

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  • It is stories like Gideon’s that make me want to give up doing blogs on the Holocaust, but paradoxically, it also encourages me to continue with it. The reason why I want to stop is apparent. Every time when I see a picture of a beautiful innocent infant, knowing that child was murdered by an…

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  • Sally was born on August 19, 1934 in Geffen, the Netherlands. I wish I could say more about Sally, but there is very little known about him. The fact that he was murdered on May 28,1943 in Sobibor is sad, What makes it even sadder, his father, mother and older sister were murdered the same…

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  • Before I go into the story of the men, who were put on slave labour by the Nazi regime, I will have to explain what ‘Limburg’ is .Limburg is a province in the southeast of the Netherlands and the northeast of Belgium. I was born and grew up in the Dutch side of Limburg. The…

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  • It is hard, if not impossible, to define what the most evil crime was during the Holocaust. It is not like there is a gradient scale you can apply. Without a doubt though the murder of children was among the most heinous of acts. One especially comes to mind. On 20 April 1945, on the…

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  • May 16 is a date which links two events in relation to the Holocaust, even though they are 15 years apart. Hana Bradyová was born on 16 May 1931 in Prague, the daughter of Markéta (née Dubsky) and Karel Bradyová. Her family lived in Nové Město na Moravě in the Vysočina Region of Czechoslovakia. Most…

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  • On May 10, 1945, probably knowing that he was close to being captured, by swallowing a capsule of potassium cyanide at the Mürwik naval base in Flensburg-Mürwik, Richard Glücks ended his own life. Although the lack of official records or photos gave rise to speculation about his ultimate fate. There are many biographies about this…

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