the Netherlands
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Statistics often make me uneasy. Stripped of context, they can be twisted to tell a misleading story—and it frequently is. Yet, there are moments when numbers, stark and raw, help us grasp the scale of events too vast for words alone. It is one of those moments. Between July 15, 1942, and September 13, 1944,…
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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…
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Amsterdam City Bioscoop (cinema) is probably one of the finest film houses in the Netherlands if not Europe. In 1995, the Pathé Cinema Group bought it, and since then, its called Pathé City. But it has one black page in its long history. The Nazi regime in the Netherlands had passed legislation that the Jewish…
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The murder of children during the Holocaust is what haunts me the most. Sometimes I try to be poetic and philosophical when I try to memorialize them, but often seeing the raw cold data is the most effective way to remember these young innocent lives. So many futures were destroyed. The picture above is from…
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It is well known that the Nazis made no distinction in age when deporting Jews in the Netherlands. The result was that even venerable elderly people were murdered in Auschwitz and Sobibor, and other camps. Among the victims listed on the Joods Monument(Jewish Monument) site, Klara Borstel-Engelsman is the oldest, at the remarkable age of…
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Ik weet niet welke straf Mevrouw C. uit Amsterdam kreeg, ik ga er vanuit dat ze de doodstraf kreeg. Het gaat ook over een van de zovele zelfmoorden tijdens de Shoah, waar zo weinig over gesprokem word. -Aanklacht, Beschuldiging en Veroordeling van Mevrouw C. uit de Blasiusstraat in Amsterdam, die zich met anderen bezig hield…
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Westerbork had opened by the Dutch authorities during the summer of 1939 to shelter and house the Jewish refugees coming from Germany. The first refugees arrived in Westerbork on 9 October 1939. After Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the Netherlands, Westerbork became the main concentration camp in the Netherlands. From 1942 to 1944, the majority…
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It would be easy for me to say that Dutch Jews, and those who fled Germany and Austria, were badly treated by the Germans in the Netherlands during World War II. To a great extent that would be true, but the Germans were helped by a great number of Dutch. One thing I have often…
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Croonenberg Family of Grevenbicht (a small village near Sittard) Before I go into the main story I have to explain the geographical history of the Westelijke Mijnstreek (Western Mining area). It is situated in the province of Limburg, the most southern province of the Netherlands, in the southeast of the country. It is also the…
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This is the aspect of the Holocaust I struggle most with. How can anyone look at this child and perceive him to be a threat to the nation. How can they look at his face and decide that he needs to be killed immediately. Sjelomo Hamburger would have celebrated his 80th birthday today. But he…
History of Sorts 