Amsterdam
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Max Hirsch was one of the 937 passengers aboard the St. Louis, the cruise ship that left the port of Hamburg on May 13, 1939, with Cuba as its final destination. The vast majority of the passengers were Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Across the Atlantic Ocean, they hoped to find a safe haven. However,…
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Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl is one of World War II’s most famous personal accounts, providing a powerful and intimate look into the life of a Jewish teenager in hiding. However, many readers are unaware that the original version of Anne’s diary contained passages about her developing sexuality, curiosity about the human…
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On February 11, 1941, the NSB member Hendrik Koot was injured fatally during a brawl at Waterlooplein. The official reports on the incident remained lost for decades. KootHendrik Koot was a member of the Weerafdeling (WA), the paramilitary wing of the NSB. Since late 1940, WA members had been intimidating and assaulting Jewish residents of…
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Annick (Germaine Mathilde) van Hardeveld Annick (Germaine Mathilde) van Hardeveld was born in 1923 in Amsterdam. She was the first child of her father, Jan van Hardeveld, and her French mother, Germaine Bertin. A few years later, a baby brother was born: Yann Emile. When the war broke out in May 1940, Annick was sixteen…
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Two lives so brief, their stories untold,In shadows of darkness, their fates took hold.Nehemia Levy Cohen, born with winter’s breath,In Amsterdam’s arms, unaware of death.Roosje van der Hal, spring’s gentle child,From Groningen’s heart, her laughter wild. On January’s day, the cold tracks groaned,Two babes were taken from the love they’d known.To Westerbork’s gates, where the…
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Betje Bierman was the second child of Levie Bierman and Sara Italiaander. She was born in Amsterdam on September 8, 1897, and married there on April 10, 1918, to diamond cutter Abraham Katwijk, the son of Jacob Katwijk and Sara Gobes, who was also born in Amsterdam on May 1, 1894. After Betje and Abraham…
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Sara de Jong van Koningsbrugge was born in Schoten, the Netherlands, on 24 April 1914. The SS murdered her in Auschwitz on 21 January 1945 at the age of 30. Since 1936, Sara de Jong was married to Adolphus (‘Dolf’) Adrianus Petrus van Koningsbrugge (Amsterdam, 21 October 1913 – Heerlen, 15 June 1974). Based on…
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Crimes committed during the Holocaust were not exclusively the actions of Germans. In ALL occupied territory, there were local citizens who willingly participated in the atrocities. While some governments, , have made efforts to confront this dark history, others, particularly in Eastern Europe, have attempted to whitewash these crimes. Why I begin with this will…
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Henriëtte Pimentel (1876–1943) was the director of the daycare center on Plantage Middenlaan. With a small group of allies, she smuggled approximately 600 Jewish children from the center to safe hiding places. On Tuesday, April 19,2022 the Henriëtte Pimentel Bridge was unveiled. The beautiful bridge over the Mauritskade leading to the Tropenmuseum will officially be…
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Many people believe there were only a handful of concentration camps during the Holocaust, but in reality, there were over 44,000 camps and incarceration sites. The Nazis categorized camps into transit camps, extermination camps, forced labor camps, concentration camps, and prisoner-of-war camps. Despite their different classifications, the overarching purpose of most of these camps was…
History of Sorts 