Tag Archives: Amersfoort

Berend Johan Westerveld-Dud who wanted to proof himself.

The picture is of Dutch SS volunteer Berend Johan Westerveld, nicknamed ‘The Bicycle Repairman’ or ‘The Knight of the Bicycle Pedal’, presumably taken after his arrest.
Berend Johan Westerveld was born on August 23, 1905 in Zutphen. His career was characterized by a series of failures. Just before the war he became a bicycle repairer and bicycle shed owner in Zutphen. In 1941 he volunteered with the SS. After his training in Berlin, he ended up as a porter and telephone operator at the Aussenstelle in Arnhem and then in Enschede. From June 1943 he was employed inCamp Amersfoort with the SS Guard batalion, until Lagerführer Berg assigned him to the Camp-SS.

Amersfoort concentration camp was a Nazi concentration camp near the city of Amersfoort, the Netherlands. The official name was “Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort”, P.D.A. or Amersfoort Police Transit Camp. 37,000 prisoners were held there between 1941 to 1945. The camp was situated in the northern part of the municipality of Leusden, on the municipal boundary between Leusden and Amersfoort in the central Netherlands.

At Abteilung III, Westerveld was under the authority of Joseph Kotälla, although both fulfilled the function of Schutzhaftlagerführer. After the war, Westerveld, like Kotälla, was qualified as an ‘unbalanced person’.
Westerveld was known as the man of ‘pumping’ and ‘robbing’. He was guilty of violent assaults and torturing. After the war, he confessed to all the charges against him. He was sentenced to death in 1948.

source

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/detail/bccabf28-025a-11e7-904b-d89d6717b464/media/80860613-c481-fc10-1b3b-9de4c2459639?mode=detail&view=horizontal&q=23%20augustus&rows=1&page=116

July 6,1942- Mauthausen

On June 12,1942 64 people are transported from Camp Amersfoort on the Netherlands, to Mauthausen in Austria.

Of those 64 people, 12 were murdered on July 6,1942.

Nathan de Klijn. born in Amsterdam, 29 August 1905.Mirdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942

Reached the age of 36 years. His surname is pronounced the same as mine. Occupation: Transport bicycle hand

Louis Cohen, born on Amsterdam, 3 January 1918.Murdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942

Reached the age of 24 years. Occupation: Office clerk

Alexander van der Stam, born in Antwerp, 30 September 1894.Murdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942

Reached the age of 47 years. Occupation: Waiter

Jozua Klein, born in Wildervank, 3 April 1901.Murdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942

Reached the age of 41 years Occupation: Merchant

David Abraham Drielsma, born on Elst, 18 September 1903.Murdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942

Reached the age of 38 years

Marcus Cohen born in Groningen, 12 July 1907.Murdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942

Reached the age of 34 years. Occupation: Debenture bond office owner

Maximiliaan del Valle, born in Amsterdam, 23 April 1897 .Murdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942.

Reached the age of 45 years. Occupation: Literary scholar

Levi Messcher, born in Haskerland, 28 June 1895.Murdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942

Reached the age of 47 years.Occupation: Sales representative

Levie Godschalk, born in Amsterdam, 24 June 1906.Murdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942

Reached the age of 36 years. Occupation: Livestock wholesale dealer.

Bernhard van der Kloot, born in The Hague, 16 November 1897. Murdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942

Reached the age of 44 years. Occupation: Merchant

Juda Schrijver, born in Amsterdam, 21 July 1915.Murdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942

Reached the age of 26 years. Occupation: Dispatch boy

Albert Sluizer , born in Amsterdam, 12 August 1916.Murdered in Mauthausen, 6 July 1942

Reached the age of 25 years. Occupation: Manager

I only gave limited biographies on the men, but this is just to show that they weren’t members of political or terror groups, or criminals, or tax evaders. They were all just regular guys with regular jobs. Yet there were murdered because the Nazis thought they were different.

sources

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/search?mode=cards&qs=#eyJjYXRlZ29yeSI6W10sImNvbnRlbnRHcm91cHMiOltdLCJwYWdlIjoxLCJzb3J0aW5nIjoiIiwiYWR2YW5jZWRmaWx0ZXJzIjp7InN1ck5hbWUiOm51bGwsImZpcnN0TmFtZSI6bnVsbCwiYmlydGhDaXR5IjpudWxsLCJkZWF0aENpdHkiOm51bGwsInJlc2lkZW5jZUNpdHkiOm51bGwsInJlc2lkZW5jZVN0cmVldCI6bnVsbCwib2NjdXBhdGlvbiI6bnVsbCwiYmlydGhZZWFyIjpudWxsLCJiaXJ0aE1vbnRoIjpudWxsLCJiaXJ0aERheSI6bnVsbCwiZGVhdGhZZWFyIjoxOTQyLCJkZWF0aE1vbnRoIjo3LCJkZWF0aERheSI6NiwiZGVjZWFzZUFnZSI6bnVsbH19

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/mensen?transport_from=https://data.niod.nl/WO2_Thesaurus/kampen/3652&transport_to=https://data.niod.nl/WO2_Thesaurus/kampen/3682&transport_date=1942-6-12

Escaping a Jewish Work camp.

There were 4 concentration camps in the Netherlands. The best known was Westerbork, the other 3 were Vught,Amersfoort and Ommen.

A relatively unknown fact is that there were also an estimated 42 work/labour camps. Between January 1942 and October 1942 , the Jewish work camps in the Netherlands spread across the countrie from which unemployed Jews had to carry out outdoor work.

The work in the camps was heavy, in almost all cases waste ground had to be cleared. The digging is done by hand. The men work long days, from six in the morning to six in the evening.

On the night of October 2–3, 1942, during Yom Kippur, the Jewish men were removed from most of these camps. They were transported to camp Westerbork on the pretext of family reunions. Most of them were sent later to Auschwitz, Sobibor and other camps, where the majority were murdered.

Maurits Jakobs was one of the men who were interned in Vedder one of the work camps. The camp was run by a Dutch company, Nederlandsche Heidemaatschappij, although it was under supervision by the Nazi regime.

At the end of September 1942, Maurits Jakobs cycled through a pitch-black forest in the middle of the night. He had just escaped from the Jewish labour camp Vledder in Drenthe. At that time, hw was not yet aware that his old camp mates would be deported to extermination camps a few days later, via Westerbork.

He managed to escape from Camp Vledder with the help of supervisor Willems, who was employed by the Nederlandse Heidemaatschappij. Willems has parked his bicycle at the sandy path. But the initiative for the escape came from Jo Oldenburger, a former employee of Maurits.

Oldenburger knew that the situation for Jews was becoming increasingly ominous and arranged a hiding place for Maurits and his wife in the town of Emmen. In the evening Oldenburger is waited for Mauris at the camp with an extra bicycle. Maurits, who initially still had doubts, decided to go along and follows Jo via the sandy path into the dark forest.

Maurits knew. as long as he would see the red bicycle light of Jo Oldenburger, who cycled in front of him, it would be safe. That was the arrangement.. Suddenly the light disappeared from view and Maurits hid with bicycle and all in a ditch. But Jo appeared to have turned a corner. They agreed to stay closer together.

The bike ride of almost seventy kilometers was tough for Maurits, who had not been on a bicycle for at least a year. After a long and painful journey they arrived at the hiding place in Emmen. Thanks to various hiding places, the Jakobs’ couple managed to stay under the radar all this time. They both survived the war.

This was probably the most ‘Dutch’ escape one could imagine. Escape by bicycle.

sources

https://www.ru.nl/rich/our-research/research-groups/cultures-of-war-and-liberation/current-projects/projects/knhm-1929-1954/

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/artikel/maurits-jakobs-ontsnapt-dagen-voor-grootschalige-deportatie-uit-kamp-vledder

https://joodsewerkkampen.nl/geschiedenis

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Sjelomo Hamburger

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 only reached the age of 2.

Sjelomo Hamburger was the son of Samuel Hamburger and Marianne van Straten.

Samuel and Marianne , lived at Fahrenheitstraat 4 in Amersfoort. They were married 25 August 1939 in Amersfoort,the Netherlands, and their son Sjelomo was born there on 22 January 1942.

A few months after the birth of their son , Samuel and Marianne decided to go into hiding with Sjelomo, to escape the persecution by the Nazis.

During a search for prohibited motion pictures, an Amersfoort police officer discovered two-year old Sjelomo Hamburger in an attic room on the Schimmelpenninckstraat in Amersfoort on 8 June 1944.

I am not sure if his parents were with him. But this is where Sjelomo Hamburger had been hiding there since August 1942. He was deported to Auschwitz via Westerbork on September 3, 1944. There were in total 783 people on that transport, 7776 Jewish, 36 resistance fighters, and 17 were classified as citizen. Two were under the age of 12, 2 year old Sjelomo was one of them.

He was murdered in Auschwitz September 6 1944.

sources

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/523482/about-sjelomo-hamburger

https://www.geni.com/people/Sjelomo-Hamburger/6000000055655845945

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/Sjelomo-Hamburger/48/9187

Law abiding citizen

Louis

I don’t know what it is but the last few days I have discovered several accounts of victims of the Holocaust which are very near to me. Not so much that I was related to these people or that I knew them, but I knew the locality and the addresses where they lived. In fact I passed these places by on a daily basis and in the case of Louis van Dam , sometimes even more then 10 times a day.

At the back of my secondary school there was a square . It was really a small park with a few benches and some trees, surrounded by houses. The square was known(and still is) as the Jubileum plein (Jubilee square)

We would often use this square for physical education lessons. One of the tests we had for PE was a run around the small park, We had a certain time (I believe it was 10 minutes) to run around the park as often as we could. 10 times or more would be a pass, anything below 10 was a fail.

plein

You probably are thinking “where is he going with this” ? Well the name I mentioned earlier was Louis van Dam, Louis and his family lived in one of the houses on the square, Jubileumplein 12,Geleen from 1930 to 1939. In 1939 they moved to a village a few miles south, Doenrade. The reason why they moved was because of health reasons. Louis’s wife  Sophie Silbernberg-van Dam, had asthma and the pollution caused by the nearby coal mine was bad for her health. However Louis also wanted to live in a remote spot near the German border so he could help Jewish refugees. who crossed the border.

In that same year Louis became a bit of a ‘celebrity’ but not in a beneficial way, He had overheard a smuggling scheme in a local pub. Some smugglers had been smuggling Dutch army uniforms to Germany(the uniforms were to be used by the German army for the invasion of the Netherlands). As a law abiding citizen Louis reported this to the Police. Two men were arrested as a result.A newspaper article was published about the incident.

Artikel

Despite the fact that Louis van Dam’s name only appeared in an abbreviated from in the newspaper, it was still known that he had reported the smugglers. Louis and his family received death threats afterwards because of this they moved again, this time to Amsterdam.

A few months after they moved, the German army invaded the Netherlands. Louis’s son Guus got involved in a students resistance group and was arrested at the end of 1941 or start of 1942.

Guus

Although the intended target for the arrest was Louis himself, some neighbours had betrayed him for listening to an English radio station, which was forbidden by the Nazi authorities. But Louis was ill and Guus was arrested instead.

Guus was sent to Auschwitz on November 10th,1942 via Scheveningen, Amersfoort and  Westerbork. It is not known where he died , his formal death certificate states date of death March 31,1944 in middle Europe, aged 22.

Louis, his wife and 2 daughters, Roos en Mimi, went into hiding.

van dam

Louis van Dam had gone into hiding using the alias Christiaan Willem Zijlstra. He died while in hiding and was buried under his alias at the Algemeene Begraafplaats Crooswijk in Rotterdam on 23 April 1945.

After the war  his remains were exhumed and  reburied at the Jewish cemetery Toepad in Rotterdam. Louis van Dam’s wife and daughter survived the war.

It just goes to show you can be passing by a house every day without being aware of the historical significance of it.

12

 

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Sources

Stichting Stolpersteine Sittard-Geleen

Joods Monument

Google Streetview

 

 

Karl Peter Berg commander of Camp Amersfoort.

Kampcommandant K.P. Berg

Karl Berg was originally the third man in the chain of command at Camp Amersfoort and in 1943 he was appointed camp commandant. He had a reputation for being cruel and merciless. Berg was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of prisoners.

amersfoort (51)

A group of 101 Russian prisoners who had arrived at the camp in 1941 were among those who died. Part of the them were starved to death; the other 77 were killed in group executions. Berg was later responsible for a number of retaliations, including the one carried out after SS and Police leader Hanns Albin Rauter was ambushed by the Resistance in the hamlet of Woeste Hoeve on the Veluwe, a wooded area in the Dutch province of Gelderland. The day after this unexpected March 1945 attack, Berg had 49 men executed on a rifle range. Following the Liberation in 1945, Berg was forced to point out the location of the mass graves where his victims had been dumped.

95.-Kleinveld0010_edit

At that moment he was still wearing these boots, but later they were taken from him.

95.-Laarzen-kampcommandant-Amersfoort

One of the most notorious SS-officers of PDA Amersfoort was Joseph Kotälla. He was appointed in September 1942 by Karl Peter Berg.

Kotälla

He was famous for his so-called ‘Kotälla-kick’, a very hard kick in the testicles with his army-boot. He also took part in many of the firing squads and he took a special interest in Jewish prisoners and priests, which he physically abused most frequently and fanatically.

In 1948 the camp commandant and guards of Amersfoort were tried and convicted for their crimes. Karl Peter Berg was sentenced to death and was executed in 1949.

prison

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.

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