Westerbork may not have been an extermination camp, but that didn’t mean it was less evil. In a way, it may have been eviler because it created an illusion that life wasn’t that bad and gave the people a false hope that their endurance of camp life would be temporary.
The 261 couples married at Camp Westerbork did so without knowing their fates.
Rosalie Norden married Max Wieselmann at the Westerbork camp on 22 October 1943. He later died at Buchenwald Camp in the first months of 1945, and she survived the war and moved to Australia in 1951. She died in 2002.
Saskia Aukema devoted a book to the marriages of Camp Westerbork, Tot de dood ons scheidt (Til Death Do We Part).
Aukema became interested in the camp marriages when she learned that a great-aunt had married at the camp—Annie Preger married Hans van Witsen on 28 January 1943 at the Westerbork Transit Camp. He was a nurse, and she was a student nurse. The marriage lasted 36 days. On 5 March 1943, in Sobibor they were murdered.
The camp management facilitated the marriages. A special barrack became the registry office where a wedding official would appear regularly to perform the ceremony. The administration kept careful records of the unions.
There was even room for intimacy. Max Vlessing bribed someone on his wedding night with a loaf of bread and butter for privacy. “After transport in the upper beds of the barracks was also an option,” his wife Mientje Vomberg added. Max and his wife survived the Holocaust.
That led to Westerbork babies being born. Robert Falk, for example, was born on 28 March 1943—nine months after his parents’ Westerbork wedding.
His father, Max Falk, was murdered in the Langenstein-Zwieberg Concentration Camp in Austria, a subcamp of Buchenwald, on 19 March 1945. Robert and his mother, Franscisca Falk-Grün’s date or place of death is unknown.
Approximately 60 of the 261 couples that Westerbork married survived.
I recently read a scientific report about the revised Extinctions and Radii for 1.5 Million Stars, which was observed by APOGEE, GALAH, and RAVE surveys. I am not sure what those three terms mean. But I was intrigued by the number of 1.5 million.
1.5 million is the estimated number of children who were murdered during the Holocaust. Personally, I think that number is probably higher.
However, for this post, I will stick with the number of 1.5 million.
1.5 million futures never fulfilled.
1.5 million books never written
1.5 million voices silenced.
1.5 million innocent souls.
1.5 million products of love are murdered by hate.
1.5 million talents never explored.
1.5 million stars in heaven.
1.5 million children like Alexander Grijsaar, who was born in Amsterdam on 27 March 1940. He was murdered aged two on 16 August 1942 in Auschwitz.
This photo of Alexander was taken by Thea Citroen. In 1940 or 1941 she worked as a childcare worker in the Princess Juliana crèche in Warmoesstraat, Amsterdam. During her work, she photographed children and teachers and wrote their names on the back of the photos. The picture below was also taken by Thea.
Most of these children were also murdered.
Thea Citoen was born in Amsterdam on 10 November 1921. She was murdered in Auschwitz on 24 July 1942.
Next time when there is a clear sky I will look at those 1.5 million stars and say a prayer for all of them.
On 3 October 1934, George van den Bergh, one of the initiators of the Jewish Work Village, stated, “Then perhaps a simple stone will be placed here with the words ‘Here stood the Jewish Work Village Nieuwesluis.’ Then may all passers-by […] behold that stone with reverence,” after that, James McDonald, High Commissioner of the League of Nations for refugees, drove the first pile for the Jewish Work Village. It was a training institute for Jews fleeing Nazi terror in Germany and Austria. The Jewish pioneers would train as farmers, furniture makers, blacksmiths or other practical professions. With training, they could start new lives in Israel or other places in the world. Many residents of the Work Village succeeded, but for some, it ended badly.
The village was opened in 1934 and was managed by the Jewish Labor Foundation. It could house approximately 300 residents, who would follow a short, two-year course.
In 1937, the pupils of the Joods Werkdorp built the community building themselves after a design by the architects Bromberg and Klein. This is how they put their acquired knowledge into practice. The building was a cross between a school building and a Wieringermeer farm. In 1939, the dars( a space in a farmhouse that runs from front to back, sometimes from side to side) were sacrificed for an extra dining room and a dishwashing room. This division has remained intact over the years. The school for mechanical agriculture, part of the Oostwaardhoeve experimental farm, left no visible traces in the post-war period.
After the German invasion and occupation of the Netherlands, the village was evacuated on 20 March 1941, except for about 60 stragglers. W. Lages and Claus Barbie were involved.
From August 1940 until the evacuation in March 1941, Abel Herzberg was director of the Jewish Work Village in Wieringermeer. Herzberg and his wife and three children were on the so-called Frederikslist and therefore enjoyed a certain protection.
Between 1934 and 1941, 780 people passed through the Work Village and of those, 197 were eventually murdered.
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.
Every time I see a picture of a sweet little angel like this, I feel like giving up on the research and reporting on the Holocaust I do. I get an overwhelming feeling of anguish, panic, anger and confusion, and I can feel physical pain.
It feels like someone just ripped out my heart. Then I remember I am not doing this for me but for them. If I will not tell their story, who will? What sickens me most is that I have these feelings 80 years after the murder of Mirjam. Why didn’t those responsible for her death didn’t have any of those feelings? Even if they had just one, Mirjam would still be alive today.
Mirjam Lewkowicz was born in Gouda, one of the most picturesque towns in the Netherlands, on 14 October 1940. Murdered in Auschwitz on 17 September 1943, she had reached the age of two years old.
How could anyone look into those eyes, and they must have seen them, and think that this little angel was a threat to their lives or a danger to their nations? How?
Dear Mirjam,
My fingers are getting wet because of the tears on my keyboard, tears that fell for you.
It is difficult for me to comprehend your murder. It makes no sense to me. You were born in Gouda, a place famous for its cheese, but I want to make it famous because it is where Mirjam Lewkowicz was born.
Your mother, Bettina, father, Herbert, and your six-month-old brother Hugo, who would have been celebrating his 80th birthday today, faced deportation to Auschwitz, where a gas chamber took the lives of your mother, brother and yourself.
I sincerely hope your story will ensure we never forget how evil mankind can be, or should I say man-cruel?
I never met you, yet your story has moved me. I am not the only one who has never met you. How could they, you were murdered when you were 6 days old.
There are no baby pictures.
There are no baby footprints.
There are no baby shoes.
Six days were all that you were allowed to live. The only evidence that you ever existed is a registration card, which tells us you were born on 12 March 1943, in Westerbork and that you died six days later on 18 March, also in Westerbork. You were cremated the same day.
You did not just die, you were murdered.
A cruel regime did not care for you, you were not seen as a human being. even though your hands had 10 fingers and your feet had 10 toes. You were a human being just like me or those who killed you. It was their sick and twisted ideology that only allowed you to live for six days.
You were born on a Friday and murdered on a Thursday.
She was a maid and came from an NSB family. At the age of 18, she started working as a guard in Camp Vught. She was involved in the Bunker drama that took place on the night of 15 to 16 January 1944. From the end of 1944 to March 1945 she worked as a security guard in Ravensbrück.
Katja Schot was notorious in the camp Vught. She taunted, kicked, humiliated, abused and beat the inmates. In 1947 she was sentenced by the Special Court in Den Bosch to twenty years in prison for her crimes, after two granted requests for clemency, she was given nine years. Katja Schot was called “an animal creature” by the prosecutor at the hearing
Katja Schot never expressed regret and married a former SS man.
The Bunker drama was an atrocity committed by the staff at the Herzogenbusch concentration camp (also known as Kamp Vught) in the Netherlands, on January 15 1944.
Right before the Bunker tragedy a quarrel took place at the female department of the camp. One of the female prisoners in barrack 23 was blamed by other women for betrayal, and finally, they cut her hair to punish her. The next day the main culprit was locked up by the camp leadership in a cell in the camp prison, the Bunker. She refused to tell the names of the other women who were involved in the quarrel. The women of the 23rd barrack decided to declare their solidarity with her and all declared guilty in expectation to lighten the punishment of their detained fellow prisoner. That was a fatal miscalculation because Grünewald took the women’s solidarity action as mutiny and decided to take very hard measures. On the 15th of January, he let round up all the women and, under the encouragement of SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Wicklein, lock them in two cells in the Bunker. They crammed 74 women into cell 115, while the remaining 17 were detained in cell 117 nearby. Cell 115, had a floor area of 9m2 and hardly any ventilation.
After 14 hours of confinement, the inmates were released from the cell. Ten women did not survive the night.
Katja Schot was present during the confinement of the prisoners and had to translate camp commander Adam Grünewald’s speech in which he described the accused women of mutiny and told them not to shout and that no window could open. There was so little space left that Schot, had to climb onto a bench to see how much space was left. Schot was also the one who reopened the cell the next morning.
Tineke Wibaut a resistance fighter and survivor testified, “When the lights went out, the panic erupted in full force. Some tried to shout through it to calm down the women and not to waste oxygen. Sometimes that helped, just for a moment, but then it started again. It didn’t stop, not that whole night, it just got less noise. The heat got stifling.”
These are the women who died.
Lena Bagmeijer-Krant Nelly de Bode Maartje den Braber Lamberta Buiteman-Huijsmans Anna Gooszen Mina Hartogs-Samson Johanna van den Hoek Lammerdina Holst Antoinette Janssen Huiberdina Witte-Verhagen
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.
I recently interviewed Eddy Boas and his son Phil. Here are some of the subjects we touched on.
Eddy Boas is a Holocaust survivor and author of the book I’m Not a Victim— I Am a Survivor. He was born in The Hague, the Netherlands, in 1940. Eddy was just three months old when the Nazis invaded and three years old when his family was rounded up and sent to Westerbork and from there to Bergen Belsen. They were the only family unit sent to the camps that survived the Holocaust.
After the war, the Dutch government treated the Boas family very poorly. They left the Netherlands for Australia. The Dutch government issued a public apology about the Dutch and their involvement in the Holocaust on Eddy’s 80th birthday on 26 January 2020.
I spoke to Eddy about the rise of Anti-Semitism and the oft-forgotten victims of the Holocaust. The quote, “If you want to improve the future, you have to learn from History” comes from his granddaughter.
I also spoke to Eddy’s son Phil, to get a perspective of the son of a Holocaust survivor.
Below is a video of Eddy’s granddaughter Sarah Jane, speaking up about Anti-Semitism. During the interview, she coined the quote, “If you want to improve the future, you have to learn from history.” I think that is a powerful and effective bit of advice.
It is rare to have three different generations of the same family in the room. I am honoured to have had the opportunity to hear from a Holocaust survivor and the second and third generation adding to the interview.
The above photograph sent shivers down my spine. Not because it is a horrific picture, just the opposite is true. Three young girls walk into town, pushing a pram.
Why I find it so disturbing, is because I know that street very well. I have walked the same route many times. In fact, all my Dutch family would have walked that route many times. It is the street that leads into the city centre of Sittard, the neighbouring town to Geleen where I grew up. Sittard and Geleen merged in 2001 to make it the bigger city of Sittard-Geleen.
The girl pushing the pram is Hermine Zondervan. She was born on the Brandstraat in Sittard, where her father had a business as an electrician and optician. Benoit had taken it over from his father. Hermien’s grandparents died when she was still small, in 1932 and 1934. Afterwards, Max Capell from Düren, a cousin of her father, lived with them for a while. Hermien did have a grandmother on her mother’s side, who lived on Stationsdwarsstraat.
Hermine was an only child but had a niece Ivonne who was the same age, and a nephew Herman who was a few years younger; and lived on the Bergstraat. On her mother’s side, she had an older cousin living in Sittard and a few others in South Holland. She spent a lot of time with Roosje Silbernberg from Engelenkampstraat, who was the same age as Hermine. In 1941, the family took in a single uncle from the father, the 84-year-old Jozef Zondervan from Maastricht. After the summer, Hermien was suddenly no longer allowed to go to school, and from then on she and the other Jewish children attended an improvised school next to the synagogue in the Plakstraat.
In August 1942, Uncle Henri was deported with his family, and in November of that same year, Uncle Jos Hertz was her mother’s brother. Hermine’s friend Roosje and her family then went into hiding. The Jewish class had become a lot emptier by then, but the atmosphere was becoming more and more oppressive.
It was Hermien’s turn, her parents and Great-Uncle Jozef Zondervan’s at the beginning of April 1943, when the last major deportation from Limburg took place. Grandma Hertz was also taken via Vught and Westerbork. First Great-Uncle Jozef, then Grandmother Hertz, and finally Estella and Hermine were all taken to Sobibor to be murdered upon arrival, on 12 June 1943. Hermine was 12 years old.
Father Benoit had stayed behind in Vught because his technical skills made him very useful in the so-called Philips Kommando, where he had to perform forced labour. In March 1944 he was also deported to the east, where he finally succumbed in April 1945.
Roosje Silbernberg survived the war.
After seeing the picture and reading the story I realized it could have easily been members of my family.
I have been accused before of focusing on the involvement of the Dutch during the Holocaust too much. But I do believe, if you want to be critical of others, you have to look at your own first.
Like in Germany, the mistreatment and eventual murder of Jews in the Netherlands started as a gradual process and then sprung into an accelerated pace in the Netherlands.
During the Second World War, the Nazis thoroughly and systematically deprived the rights and possessions of the Jewish population in the Netherlands, with the cooperation of parts of the Dutch population. Legally, these steps were laid down in the form of regulations, which had the force of law. It is important to note that these regulations went completely against the Dutch constitution and the 1917 National War Regulations discussed earlier. Below is a timeline of the economic disenfranchisement of Dutch Jews.
May 1940: The German occupation of the Netherlands. From 18 May 1940, the highest administrative authority in the Netherlands rested with the Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who could issue regulations.
October 1940: By regulation VO 189/1940, Jewish companies had to register. About 22,000 companies did so. From March 1941, they fell under the management of the German authorities, after which liquidation followed via a second, later regulation (VO 48/1941).
November 1940: Jewish civil servants were dismissed by decree (VO 137/1940).
January 1941: Every person with at least one Jewish grandparent had to register as a Jew with the population register. Historian Lou de Jong called this regulation of 10 January (VO 6/1941), “one of the most fatal regulations of the occupation years.”
August 1941: The first “Liro Regulation” (VO 148/1941) obliged Jews to transfer their bank accounts to Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co. to transfer.
That same month they had to register their real estate and income from it (VO 154/1941). As a result, the registration of 20,000 and 25,000 properties and approximately 5,600 mortgages took place. These fell under the management of the Niederländische Grundstücksverwaltung (NGV), or the Dutch Administration of Real Estate.
July 1942: The transport to extermination camps for Jews in the Netherlands began on a large scale. The government removed their rights at that time. From that moment on, it was open season for robbery and the sale of Jewish properties. The Hague Estate Agent and NSB member, Dirk Hidde de Vries established the General Dutch Property Management (ANBO) for the sale of looted Jewish properties.
The loss of their property rights meant a complete exclusion of Jews from economic and legal life in the Netherlands. This process went step by step through many different, including Dutch, organizations, but we can summarize it in three phases: registration, management and sales. Management, in this case, meant that the former owners no longer had any control over their property or businesses, nor did they receive any income from it. The appointed administrators only had to follow instructions from the occupier. The proceeds from the sale of the stolen Jewish property went to the German management agency Vermögensverwaltungs- und Rentenanstalt (VVRA), instead of to the rightful claimants. With this income, the occupying power paid, among other things, for the construction of the concentration and transport camps in the Netherlands. The managers and war buyers were not only Germans or members of the N.S.B., Dutch people without National Socialist convictions also participated.
Various organizations carried out the robbery of Jewish property and the sale, which was a culmination of the juridical and economic deprivation of Jews. As mentioned above in the timeline, Jewish land ownership was administered by the Niederländische Grundstückverwaltung (hereinafter referred to as NGV) and its private subcontractors. This management included all legal acts “which entail a proper management of Jewish land ownership” and aimed at selling the properties to ‘Aryan’ Dutchmen. By allowing the Dutch population to participate in the robbery of Jewish possessions, the German occupying forces were able to spread the National Socialist ideology. Part of the Dutch population also gained an interest in preventing the pre-war situation from being restored. The NGV appointed so-called Verwalter (private managers) to carry out these activities. In Schiedam, and also Rotterdam and The Hague, among others, these transactions were carried out by the Algemeen Nederlands Beheer Immovable Property. This organization was set up in 1941 specifically for the management of expropriated Jewish homes by the broker Dirk Hidde de Vries from The Hague, who had the power of substitution for the NGV. After the expropriation of Jewish houses, the managers had themselves registered as such in the land register. Homeowners who lived in their own homes then had to pay the managers rent to continue living in their own homes. When the manager sold Jewish properties, the former owners had to vacate their homes immediately, leaving them suddenly homeless. When Jewish owners were deported to extermination camps, their household effects were inventoried, by the Hausraterfassungstelle, after which the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg often transported furniture to Germany to replace furniture destroyed by bombings.
The NGV registered more than 7,000 transactions of expropriated Jewish property in the Verkaufsbücher. The organization and its trustees seem to have had mixed success selling Jewish homes. Historians differ in opinion about how eagerly the expropriated buildings were accepted by the Dutch population. In general, these house sales stagnated after the German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943. Robin te Slaa notes that houses were sold with little success in The Hague, while Hinke Piersma and Jeroen Kemperman note that there was a lively trade in Amsterdam around the buildings. Some Dutch municipalities, such as Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam also purchased expropriated Jewish property themselves.
SOURCES
Rapport Joodse Huiseigenaren en Huurders Gemeente Schiedam
On 2 March 1943, a train with 1105 people left camp Westerbork for the then-unknown Sobibor extermination camp. After a three-day journey, the train arrived on the 5th of March. It was the first transport from the Netherlands to this camp.
The first transport, like the second, was carried out by passenger train. Then cattle trucks were used. No one survived the first transport.
A few days earlier on 26 February 1943, there was a raid on the Israeli Orphanage in Rotterdam. During the raid at least 50 children were arrested and taken to Westerbork. On 2 March 1943, the children were taken to Sobibor. There they were murdered on 5 March 1943.
Two of those children were Ella Mia Broekman and her younger brother Hans Max Broekman. They were transported to Westerbork on 27-2-1943. On March 2 1943 they were deported to Sobibor together. Their mother, Schoontje had already been murdered in Auschwitz on 26 January 1943. Their father, Abraham was murdered in Vught Transit Camp on 31 January 1943.
Ella Mia Broekman was born in Deventer, the Netherlands, on 5 November 1935. She was murdered in Sobibor on 5 March 1943. She was 7 years old.
Hans Max Broekman was born in Hilversum, the Netherlands on 11 July 1937. He was murdered in Sobibor on 5 March 1943. He was 5 years old.
The orphanage wasn’t the only place that was raided on 26 February 1943.
The Megon Hatsedek (Abode of Beneficence) was established in 1837. The first building was on Hoogstraat, but after it became too small, the hospital was relocated to Houtlaan. This building also turned out not to meet the requirements, and in October 1900 it moved again, this time to the Schietbaanlaan. The hospital was still located here during the outbreak of the Second World War. It continued as a hospital during the war.
On 26 February 1943, the hospital was raided by Dutch WA officers (the paramilitary arm of the Dutch Nazi party) and the Sicherheitsdienst. Even patients who were too sick to be transported were taken. One patient was transported to another hospital in Rotterdam where she later died. A total of 261 patients, residents and staff members were brought to the warehouse, Loods 24 by truck located in the port area. It had been used by Nazis, as a gathering place for Jewish Rotterdammers who had been called up in Rotterdam and on the South Holland islands.
From Loods 24, the 261 patients and staff were transported to Westerbork on 2 March 1943 and then deported to the Sobibor extermination camp. They arrived in Sobibor on 5 March 1943 and, upon arrival murdered immediately.
Only two nurses, Sophie Huisman and Cato Polak, and the director of the hospital, Dr M. Elzas, survived the war. The director was warned about the evacuation of the hospital and immediately went to the hospital. He left with his patients instead of going into hiding. After the war, he returned to Rotterdam via Westerbork, Barneveld and Theresienstadt.
Another targeted Jewish institution that day was the “Het Israëlitisch Oudeliedengesticht” (The Israeli Old People’s Home). The Israelite Old People’s Home in Rotterdam was for the sick and elderly, founded in 1837. The home evacuated during the large-scale raid in February 1943. They transported the residents on 2 March to Sobibor.
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 
You must be logged in to post a comment.