Westerbork
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Elleke Trijtel was born in Amsterdam on October 24. 160-days later, they murdered you in Sobibor. Dear Elleke, your parents loved each other, you were the fruit of their love. You were born under a regime that hated you so much, they only allowed you to live 160 days. There was no rain the day…
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Approximately 25,000 Jews from Germany and Austria sought refuge in the Netherlands in the 1930s after the Nazis came to power. They were welcomed in the Netherlands because many Dutch were appalled by the treatment of the Jews in Germany. The photograph above shows a large protest meeting in the Amsterdam R.A.I. in 1938 against…
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I once wrote a piece about Klara Borstel-Engelsman. Today is the 78th anniversary of her murder, and I felt compelled to do another one, just to show how utterly cruel, insane and absurd the Nazi regime was. Klara was murdered at age 102. She was the oldest Dutch person to be murdered by the Nazis.…
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When I saw this photograph, I was reminded of another photo. It was a picture of my colleagues and I in 1993/1994. It was taken at work on the day of the retirement of one of my colleagues at the time. We had a small party afterwards at the cafeteria of Philips Sittard. The photo…
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On September 29, 1943, Amsterdam was declared ‘Judenrein’. (Free of Jews) It happened after a major raid, in which 5,000 people, including the board and employees of the Jewish Council, were arrested and transported via Amstel station to Camp Westerbork. Those who were able to avoid the raids ended up in hiding places. A countrywide…
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On 3 September 1944, Anne Frank and her family were put on a transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz. It would be the last train to leave Westerbork. The train arrived three days later at Auschwitz. The women selected from this transport, including Anne, Edith, and Margot, were marked with numbers between A-25060–A-25271. Anne Frank’s final…
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Millions were murdered during the Holocaust, and each of these victims represents a tragic and sad story. However, although very few, there were some positive Holocaust stories, but even with the positivity, there was an underlying negative story, because it tells of their disrupted lives. Hans Leo (Henry in later life) Abraham and his sister…
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The Holocaust wasn’t only the mass murder of Jews and others, it was preceded by other crimes. Although many people would not have perceived them as crimes, because they were legalised by Nazi laws. The rapacity of the Nazis was expressed in a large number of measures, orders and ordinances (VO) with the force of…
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This house was an orphanage for Jewish girls from 1861 to 1943.In 1889 the orphanage was extended to include the neighbouring house.On 10 February 1943, the girls and their attendants weredeported to the extermination camp Sobibor. They were supposed to have been deported before, but due to a scarlet fever outbreak on 4 July 1942,…
History of Sorts 