the Netherlands

  • A few months ago I saw a quote which said “If you remember one, you remember them all” This really stuck with me. Today I am remembering Betsy Labzowski, she was born in Zierikzee, the Netherlands , 29 June 1920 and she was murdered in Extern kommando Raguhn, 12 March 1945, which was a subcamp of…

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  • 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,…

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  • I need someone to explain to me the threat this nine-month-old child posed to the Nazi state? Annelise Julie van Voolen was born on 17 September 1942 in Amsterdam and was murdered on 1 July 1943 in Westerbork. She was cremated the following day July 2nd. I don’t know what caused her death but I…

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  • Phil Bloom in Hoepla

    +++++Contains some nudity++++ This is a bit of a deviation of my usual blogs but Phil Bloom has a significant cultural meaning to the Netherlands .The name Phil Bloom will mean very little to people outside of the Netherlands. She is an artist and actress On July 28,1967 she caused quite some controversy and a…

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  • Not Just Numbers

    The approximate number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust by nation . Poland 3,000.000; Ukraine 900,000;Hungary 450,000; Russia 352,000;Romania 300;000;BaltIc countries 228,000;Germany/Austria 210,000;the Netherlands 105,000;France 92,000;Slovakia 75,000; Greece 54,000;Belgium 40,000;Yugoslavia 26,000;Bulgaria 14,000 ;Italy 8,000,Luxembourg 1,000;Norway 900. Total 5,907,900. These numbers are just estimates. I believe the number is actually higher, because not all suicides are…

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  • This looks like a fairly standard receipt and although it is hard to make out the names on the document, it does tell a very dark tale. The document is a receipt issued by the SS to a Dutch citizen. The receipt is an acknowledgement of a payment of 37.50 Dutch guilders to this man…

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  • Maastricht is one of my favourite cities. I grew up only about 10 miles away from it and would have visited it numerous times. It is, the most south eastern city in the Netherlands and is well known for its close proximity to Belgium and Germany. It is also the the home of violin virtuoso…

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  • I wish I could tell you that this picture was used to have a good laugh at my history teacher Benno Redisch. The photograph was handed to us by his wife to use in a presentation on his 10th anniversary as a teacher, but he was not my teacher. I wish I could tell you…

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  • The Nazis told so many lies about the Jews in order to justify their deportations and murder to the wider population. One of the lies was that the Jews were an economical threat, they were all very wealthy and lazy. Yes there were some wealthy Jews but not more then in any other group of…

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  • I was going to do a piece on Nora Italiaander. She would have celebrated her 80th birthday today, but she was murdered on June 4,1943 in Sobibor. She was just aged 2. The picture above is of her death notification issued on the 11th of June 1947, 4 years after her death. But like Nora…

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