Anyone familiar with my blog knows that the murder of children during the Holocaust touches me deeply. I know one of the excuses for murdering children was to avoid that they would take revenge. It always puzzled me. The only reason why you’d want to kill someone to avoid revenge is because—you knew what you did was wrong.
Using that same logic, why would you kill orphans because many of them would have no one to avenge?
A Jewish orphanage was a novelty for The Hague in the 19th century. Previously, family members cared for Jewish orphans, if necessary, with financial assistance from the Jewish community’s poor fund. They were not allowed to be housed in one of the non-Jewish orphanages in the city because of kashrut (the ritual dietary requirements).
After the start of the Second World War, the management had to keep the orphanage running under the most difficult of circumstances. On September 4, 1940, all refugees had to leave the coastal area by order of the German occupier. Four days later, the orphanage received news that German refugee children over the age of fifteen were also leaving The Hague. They left for the Central Israeli Orphanage in Utrecht, among other places.
In the late evening of March 5, 1943, Nazis raided the orphanage. All attendees, staff, and children—were forcibly taken from the orphanage, forced onto waiting trucks, and transported to Westerbork. Most of the children and the adults were sent to the Sobibor Extermination Camp on March 10, 1943. There the Nazis killed them on March 13, 1943.
The Nazis took the children and staff from the orphanage, including the director Heinrich Ullmann, his wife Zippora Abrahams, and their children Helene, Machiel, and Renée. Heinrich Ullmann was originally from Antwerp in Belgium.
The following photos are of some of the children.
Siegfried Weissmann was born in Karlsruhe, Germany on February 23, 1928. He was murdered at Sobibor on July 23, 1943. He was 15 years old.
Esther Weiszbard was born in Berlin, Germany on March 5, 1926. She was murdered in Sobibor on March 13, 1943. She was 17 years old upon death.
Gemmi Liebfreund was born in The Hague on October 7, 1933. He was murdered at Sobibor, on March 13, 1943. He was nine years old.
Ilse Bruch was born in Kempen, the Netherlands on January 16, 1934. She was murdered at Auschwitz on November 2, 1943. She was nine years old.
The Dutch resistance was quite small compared to other countries. It developed relatively slowly, but the February strike of 1941 greatly stimulated resistance. Their actions could mainly be characterized as non-violent. However, there were several assassinations.
The approach of the Allies in September 1944, however, prompted the Dutch resistance to expand and intensify its actions. Not only did the number of acts of sabotage increase, but also the assassinations of Germans, traitors and collaborators. On December 29, 1944, police officer A.F. Aan was shot dead in the Ribesstraat, the Hague, on his way home. He was a member of the NSB, the Dutch Nazis.
I sincerely believe that some people are just born evil. If it hadn’t been for the war, their evil ways—would probably have been displayed in other ways.
Dr. Ernst Knorr was born Heiligenbeil, Germany on October 13, 1899. He died in Scheveningen, the Netherlands on 7 July 1945. He was an SS officer in the rank of SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) but was also a doctor. He led the SD. He was part of Referat IV-A (Bekämpfung Kommunismus) of the Sicherheitsdienst in The Hague and was known as the executioner at interrogations.
If prisoners were to be tortured—during interrogations—the SD would euphemistically indicate that they would call the doctor. His workplace was Binnenhof 7, which is near the Dutch parliament. Until the beginning of June 1941, the communists were only kept under surveillance and deliberately not yet arrested—partly because Knorr could be involved in other activities. He witnessed the violent interrogation of the Resistance fighter Sjaak Boezeman, a man tortured to death.
Boezeman was taken to the Binnenhof and interrogated by five SD men, including Ernst Knorr, at 03:15 a.m. Sjaak was taken back unconscious to the Oranjehotel, where he was in bad shape. The SD’ers claimed that Sjaak tried to cut his wrist arteries with a razor. When he regained consciousness, Sjaak told the guards that the Germans slit his wrists. That morning Sjaak Boezeman died in his cell. He is the first or one of the first Dutch resistance fighters to be murdered by the Nazis.
Albert Schaap was a prisonguard at the Oranjehotel prison and later testified, “I then saw that his back was all wounded. He was completely covered with bruises, and his whole back was covered with blood. He could not speak properly—as his whole face was shattered and the blood was running out of his mouth.”
From the beginning of June 1941, Ernst Knorr was involved in the violent interrogation of communists in The Hague. On September 2, 1941, he was the leader of a team of 3-5 people that interrogated the communist Herman Holstege in the prison of Scheveningen (Oranjehotel) so cruelly that it was expected that he would die. The intention was to learn from Holstege, who had remained silent for a month, the names of his contacts at the communist party leadership in Amsterdam. Knorr penetrated Holstege’s anus with a rubber bat, after which the intestines were tamped. Holstege, however, gave little information and not the names of the leadership in Amsterdam. Holstege died the next day. In view of the preparations in the Oranjehotel, torture was planned. In a post-war report, this was referred to as stupidity, because it lost the opportunity to track down the party leadership in Amsterdam.
In the course of 1942, Knorr was sidetracked and replaced by Hans Munt. In post-war reports, Munt indicated that these acts of violence were the reason for the changes in position, but in practice, they did not mean the end of the torture of communists.
On 19 February 1943, a trap was set in Delft for the communist resistance fighter Gerrit Kastein. Three SD men were waiting for Kastein at a cafe as Knorr waited outside in the car. Kastein arrested, was taken to the car. Near the car, Kastein managed to pull out a pistol and shoot. He injured Knorr quite badly; after the cars drove away, a pool of blood remained on the street. Gerrit Willem Kastein jumped out of the window at Binnenhof on 21 February 1943 but did not survive the fall.
The extremely violent interrogations not only caused the deaths of Sjaak and Gerrit Willem but the valuable secrets they knew were also lost. It went too far for Ernst’s superiors. As a punishment, he was transferred to the Scholtenhuis in Groningen. There Ernst continues his violent practices.
There, too, Knorr stood out for his cruelty. He murdered the resistance fighter Esmée van Eeghen. Her body was riddled with bullets and dumped in the Van Starkenborgh Canal. Van Eeghen is controversial because she fell in love with a German officer. Their love affair played a significant role in the resistance. It proved invaluable—her role, especially in Friesland—that was ultimately fatal for her due to that turbulent love life. The character of Rachel Stein from the 2006 film Black Book was based on the life of van Eeghen.
Although van Eeghen was financially independent, she worked as a nurse at the Amsterdam civil hospital. In the spring of 1943, she entered into a love affair with the medical student Henk Kluvers.[1] When he was supposed to sign the declaration of loyalty for students in the spring, he decided instead to go to Leeuwarden to evade this signature. Van Eeghen followed him and supported him and his friend Pieter Meersburg in hiding Jewish children on behalf of the Landelijke Organisatie voor Hulp aan Onderduikers (LO) in the Northern part of the country. They saved the lives of at least 100 children.
Klaas Carel Faber, execution command member and escaped war criminal, said about the execution, “I saw Miss Esmee get out of the car. She had only just gotten out of the car when I saw Knorr firing at Miss Esmee. After the first shot, I saw her fall to the ground. I heard she was still screaming. I saw Knorr shoot her ten more times.”
On 16 April 1945, Knorr withdrew to Schiermonnikoog with several German soldiers. The intention was to pick up people by boat from Borkum and take them to Germany. It was not until 27 May, that a Dutch officer went to the island to demand they surrender. The group was transferred to the mainland on 30 May and locked up in a prison in Groningen. Knorr was transferred on 27 June by Canadian Field Security to the so-called Kings Prison in Scheveningen, located in the penal prison.
On 7 July 1945, Knorr was found dead in his cell. He had a piece of rope around his neck. In the cell, however, there was no high fulcrum to hang oneself from. According to statements from other Germans in prison, Knorr had been severely beaten, which resulted in death. There wasn’t an autopsy performed. Later, a prison doctor stated that it was technically possible that Knorr committed suicide by attaching the rope low to the wall and strangling himself by hanging over.
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 29,1942 in the Hague, the Netherlands.
But from conception to death took only 18 months for Hartog. He was murdered aged 9 months, on June 7,1943 in Westerbork.
All that is recorded of Hartog is the newspaper notification and the notification of his death.
Both his parents were murdered just over a month later on July 16,1943 in Sobibor.
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.
Koenraad was born on January 29,1942.
He was the second child of Florence Gezang-Goudeket and Maurits Gezang . The couple had had another son, Edward . At the time of Koentje’s birth, the family lived in The Hague, the Netherlands.
After a failed attempt to escape to Switzerland in August 1942, the Gezang couple decided to go into hiding separately from each other. Koentje was left in early October with Leo van Dis in Overveen. A Dutch teacher at the Second HBS in Haarlem, he was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church and involved in resistance work within his religious community. He promised to find a reliable foster home for the child. This was a tried and tested method of the resistance to save Jewish babies: a baby was placed on the doorstep of a trustworthy family (usually by agreement), who then alerted the police and registered the baby with the registry office. Then the family took care of the child and either adopted it, or it went to an orphanage. In this way the child was no longer registered as Jewish and could potentially survive the war or deportation.
On October 16 at 8.45 pm Koenraad was put as a foundling on the doorstep of the Van de Bunt family at Duinwijckweg 1 in Bloemendaal. Henk van de Bunt, father of the family, reported his discovery by telephone to police sergeant Henk Bikkel, after which an investigation was started into the origin of the child. By means of a notification in the Haarlemsche Courant of 20 October, the public was asked for information by the police.
The notification says that the boy was dressed in a pink jacket and a pink hat. In those days baby boys would wear pink and baby girls would wear blue.
National newspapers took over this report a day later. On October 26, Van de Bunt filed a declaration with the registry office of the municipality of Bloemendaal. The foundling was given the first name Remi, after the main character from the book “Alone in the world” by Hector Malot ; the surname Van Duinwijck refers to the location of the child. His age was estimated at about eight months. ‘Remi’ was lovingly welcomed into the family of Henk van de Bunt, his wife Jo and their children.
Four days later, the couple and Koenraad had to report to the head office of the Sicherheitsdienst in Amsterdam. The SD took the position that Koentje(short voor Koenraad) was not allowed to stay with his foster parents, because he was a Jewish child. Jo van de Bunt’s objection that this was not certain because the child had not been circumcised, was to no avail. The couple had to return home without Koentje.
In order to determine whether Koentje was actually Jewish, the doctor and alderman of Public Health Johan Lodewijk Strakwas ordered to physically examine the boy. He reported to the Plantage Middenlaan in the first week of 1943. On January 8, 1943, Strak, a member of the NSB and an SS member, reported that Koentje had not been circumcised, but could be called Jewish on the basis of external characteristics.
The boy was transferred by order of the Nazis to the nursery at Plantage Middenlaan 31, opposite the Hollandsche Schouwburg in Amsterdam.
The little boy stole the hearts of the nursery staff and of the German officers, who came to visit him regularly. All the attention the boy received made it impossible to send him into hiding.
In order to determine whether Koentje was actually Jewish, the doctor and alderman of Public Health Johan Lodewijk Strak was ordered to physically examine the boy. He reported to the Plantage Middenlaan in the first week of 1943. On January 8, 1943, Strak, a member of the NSB and an SS member, reported that Koentje had not been circumcised, but could be called Jewish on the basis of ‘physical attributes’. How he determined that is a puzzle to me. It is a myth that there are any specific Jewish ‘physical attributes’ ,then again the whole blonde blue eyed Aryan notion was a myth too. The original Aryans were from Indo-Iranian origin.
After a stay of more than five months in the nursery , Koentje was transferred to Camp Westerbork, where he arrived on 15 April 1943.
On May 18, 1943, the 12th transport departed from Westerbork for Sobibór. There were 2,511 adults and children on board the train. One of them was Remi van Duinwijck, his real name ,Koenraad Huib Gezang, was not yet known at the time. Koenraad was murdered on May 21,1943, age 1.
In 2002, the real name of Remi van Duinwijck finally was released as Koenraad Huib Gezang .
Koentje’s mother Florence went into hiding in October 1942, together with her parents and sister Helena. In December they were discovered, arrested by the Gestapo and transported to Westerbork. From there they were transported, together with the parents of her Husband, Maurits Gezang, to Sobibór on 6 April 1943, where they were all murdered three days later. Koenraad’s dad and brother, Maurits and Eddy, managed to move to Paris , where they lived under the name Wiedeman. Both survived the war. Maurits remarried and died in 1983. Eddy Gezang emigrated to Sweden in the early 1950s. After he stopped working in 1995, he investigated what had happened to his brother during the war. Initially he cherished the hope that Koentje was still alive, possibly under another name. Gradually he found out that the photos his father once gave him of his brother showed the same boy who was known as the foundling Remi from the nursery. In 2002 he resigned himself to the fact that Koentje alias Remi had been murdered in Poland. Eddy passed away in 2014.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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Vincent Willem van Gogh ( 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He was not commercially successful, and his suicide at 37 came after years of mental illness, depression and poverty.
On his birthday lets have a look at his lesser known works.
Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette
Still Life with Open Bible, Extinguished Candle and Novel
They say that babies born today will live for 100+ years. This of course can not be said with a 100% certainty, simply for the reason that we don’t know what the future brings.
When Margherita Berkelij was born on February 3,1937 her parents had all reason to believe that Margherita would live a long, fulfilling life.
However they could not look into the future and they could not have possibly predicted that Margherita would only reach the age of 6. Not because she was sick, or was killed by accident. The only reason why she died was because she was Jewish. An occupying force in the Hague, the city where she was born, aided by locals who subscribed to the Nazi ideology made sure that Margherita and her whole family were transported to Sobibor where they all were murdered on May 28,1943.
The above picture is a snippet of a record fro, June 2,1949 of the Dutch ministry of Justice reporting the death of Margherita Berkelij. What is truly disturbing is the full record.
Below is a part of that record it is the people who were murdered in Sobibor. If you want to have some idea, these are only Dutch Jews and it is a record by alphabetical order but only from A to C.
Dear Margherita, wherever you are now. I wish you a happy birthday. There were those who did not want you to live, but there were many more who did not want you to die, I am one of them
I have to be honest and admit that I am not entirely sure if the title is entirely correct, I am working on presumptions. However they are well founded presumptions.
More then 75% of all Dutch Jews were murdered during the Holocaust it is therefore safe to presume that the at least 75% of these children were murdered too.
I also believe that the picture below is from the same school or after school youth care organisation in Amsterdam which was organised by the Jewish Council.
The things I am certain about is that at least 2 survived one of them is Fred Lessing(below an interview with Fred from January 26,1993)
The other survivor is an unknown visitor to the NIOD Image bank website he said this about the below picture
“‘I am in this picture, sitting in the middle (round shirt collar). Born October 26, 1935. Am sitting next to Fred Lessing .'”
Just look at all those angelic faces and think of the fact that most of them were murdered for no other reason then hate.
Donation
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
Education is often seen as a human right and it really should be, but so often it is a privilege taken away from many.
Moshe Flinker was a teenager born in the Hague, in the Netherlands on October 9, 1926. He had a particular talent for language,he studied eight languages including Hebrew. The language he used to write his diary.
Now I could write a lot about Moshe , about his life in the Hague or about his life in Brussels, where he and his family hid from the summer on 1942 to 1944. He and his family remained relatively safe until 7 April 1944, the eve of Passover. But they were betrayed by an informer. Moshe’s Father had managed to keep the family safe by obtaining a so-called Aryan permit snf bribery thus far.
Rather then writing about his life I think it is better to give a glimpse of Moshe’s life in his won words.
“November 24, 1942 For some time now I have wanted to note down every evening what I have been doing during the day. But, for various reasons, I have only got round to it tonight. First, let me explain why I am doing this – and I must start by describing why I came here to Brussels. I was born in The Hague, the Dutch Queen’s city, where I passed my early years peacefully. I went to elementary school and then to a commercial school, where I studied for only two years. In 1940, when the Germans entered Holland, I had another two years to go until graduation. They issued a decree forbidding Jewish students to attend schools staffed by gentile (“Aryan”) teachers, and so I was prevented from finishing my course. The exclusion of Jews from public schools is just one of a long list of restrictions: they had been forced to hand over their radios, they were not allowed into the movies, etc. In the big cities, where many Jews lived, special schools for Jews were opened, with only Jewish teachers. One such school was opened in The Hague. Our school was a high school with three departments: classical languages, modern subjects, and commerce. I, of course, continued my commercial studies. During the year I attended, the number of restrictions onus rose greatly.
Several months before the end of the school year we had to turn in our bicycles to the police. From that time on, I rode to school by streetcar, but a day or two before the vacations started Jews were forbidden to ride on street-cars. I then had to walk to school, which took about an hour and a half. However, I continued going to school during those last days because I wanted to get my report card and find out whether I had been promoted to the next class. At that time I still thought that I would be able to return to school after the vacations; but I was wrong. Even so, I must mention that I did get my promotion. Now I wish to note the restrictions inflicted upon us during the vacations. I forgot to mention that during that year we had been forced to sew a “Badge of Shame” on the left side of our outer clothing. This “Badge” was a Star of David, on which the word “Jew” was written in Dutch. Halfway through that year the Germans began gathering Jews into the big cities, particularly Amsterdam. Jews were not permitted to move anywhere except to Amsterdam. When there were enough Jews there, the Germans began sending them to destinations which are still unknown to me today. This is the way they sent them: many Jewish families would receive letters ordering them to get ready for a three-days’ journey. They were to get food for the trip and also take whatever clothes and utensils would be necessary for the journey. Then at midnight they had to go to the railroad station. From there they were sent to Westerbork, a detention camp near the Dutch-German border”
Moshe’s siblings survived but he and his parents were murdered in Auschwitz.
I believe it is very important to keep history alive, but unfortunately that is not free. However I will not ask to pay for subscription , but if you want to donate it is very much appreciated, but only of you can
The UN designated this day January 27 as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It coincides with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, although Auschwitz (which consisted out of about 40 camps) was the biggest death camp. There were other camps, though smaller in scale but equally as evil.
I know it is hard for people to fathom the amount of people who were murdered, but you can start remembering them victim by victim.
Victims like Koenraad Huib Gezang aka Remy van Duinwijck, two days from now it would have been his 78th birthday, but he didn’t even reach his 2nd birthday.
In October 1942, he was taken in by the crèche opposite the Hollandsche Schouwburg in Amsterdam. He was left as an abandoned child.Nobody knew who he was. They named him Remi van Duinwijck, after Remi after the boy in the book ‘‘Sans Famille’ or Nobody’s Boy by Hector Malot. Duinwijck was the place where he had been found.
The little angel was real heart breaker as he had stolen the hearts of the staff at the crèche and even of SS-Hauptsturmführer Ferdinand aus der Fünten, who came to visit him regularly. But all this attention he received made it impossible to keep him safe send him into hiding, he was taken away and sent to Westerbork in April 1943, where he remained until May 18, 1943/ From there he was sent to Sobibor where he arrived on May 21 and was killed. After the war,in 2002,. his true identity was discovered, his real name was Koenraad Huib Gezang.
His parents had decided in August 1942 in order to increase the chance of survival to split up the family. Koen was initially send to another family member and via other shelter places eventually ended up at the crèche, where he was left as an abandoned child.
His mother Florence Gezang-Goudeket was also murdered in Sobibor, om April 9, 1943 just a few weeks before Koen was murdered.
His father Maurits, who had been a member of the resistance in the Hague , the Netherlands and Koen’s brother Edward both survived the war.
Donation
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
History of Sorts 
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