Rywka Lipszyc was a young Jewish girl who wrote a poignant diary during her time in the Lodz Ghetto in Poland during World War II. Her diary provides a personal and intimate glimpse into the life and thoughts of a teenager living under the extreme conditions of Nazi persecution.
In I945, Rywka’s diary was found in the ashes of a destroyed crematorium in the liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp.
Rywka was born on September 15,1929. Her diary, much like Anne Frank’s, offers an intimate and poignant portrayal of the Holocaust from the perspective of a young girl.
Below are some excerpts from her diary.
“I keep repeating the verse: ‘I lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where shall my help come?’ Yes, only from Him. I can’t go on without faith. I would lose all hope, all strength.”
“Another day has passed in the ghetto. Hunger, cold, and the endless struggle for survival. It’s so hard to stay strong, but I must. For myself and for those who depend on me.”
“I am just a tiny spot; even under a microscope, I would be very hard to see—but I can laugh at the whole world because I am a Jew. I am poor and in the ghetto; I do not know what will happen to me tomorrow, and yet I can laugh at the whole world because I have something very strong supporting me—my faith.”
“I dream of a better world, a world where we are free, where we can live without fear. I want to learn, to read, to write. I want to live, truly live.”
“Why is there so much hatred in the world? Why can’t we live in peace? I don’t understand. But I believe that love will conquer hate in the end.”
Rywka Lipszyc was sent on a death march to Bergen-Blesen and was there when the camp was liberated. She was sent to a hospital in Niendorf on July 25, 1945, for being very ill and weak. She disappeared at age 15, on September 10, 1945, and was last seen at Niendorf, Timmendorfer Strand, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Her hospital records showed she was still alive on that date, but it is disputed whether Rywka was dead or alive after that date.
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.
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In a secret annex, hidden from sight, A girl named Anne penned dreams in the night. Amidst the shadows, where fears took flight, Her words found wings, a beacon of light.
A diary’s pages, inked with her pain, Chronicles of hope amidst the rain. Whispers of laughter, echoes of tears, A testament to youth’s fleeting years.
Behind the curtains, the world seemed stark, Yet Anne’s spirit ignited a spark. With every entry, she bared her soul, In that tiny room, she found her role.
Dreams of freedom, a life to unfold, Stories of courage are quietly told. In the face of darkness, she stood tall, A symbol of hope for one and all.
The walls that confined her, silent and grey, Couldn’t contain the dreams she portrayed. Anne’s Legacy, a timeless song, A reminder of love, enduring and—strong.
Through her eyes, we glimpse the past, A child’s voice is resonant and vast. In every line, her spirit lives on, A light in the darkness until the dawn.
A few years ago, I was asked to give a speech at my eldest son’s high school graduation as a representative of the Parents’ Council. I ended the speech with a quote from Margot Frank.
“Times change, people change, thoughts about good and evil change, about true and false. But what always remains fast and steady is the affection that your friends feel for you, those who always have your best interest at heart.”
I know most of us have read Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, but I feel that Frank’s family narrative neglects her sister Margot.
I often wonder how much Margot contributed to Anne’s diary. I don’t mean in writing it, but in facilitating Anne by freeing up time for her to write it. Margot was the oldest of the Frank girls, and she must have had a better understanding of what was happening, especially earlier on during World War II.
Margot Betti Frank was born on February 16, 1926, in Frankfurt, Germany, to Edith and Otto Frank. She was the elder sister of Anne Frank, whose diary would later become one of the most famous accounts of life during the Holocaust. Margot was known for her intelligence, diligence, and reserved nature, and she excelled in her studies.
Margot was three years older than Anne. The Frank family lived a comfortable, assimilated life in Germany until the rise of the Nazi regime forced them to flee to the Netherlands in 1933. They settled in Amsterdam, where Otto Frank started a business, and the family tried to build a new life away from the increasing persecution of Jews in Germany.
In Amsterdam, Margot attended the Jeker School and later the Jewish Lyceum. She was known to be a bright student, and she often received high marks. She dreamed of becoming a maternity nurse or a teacher and had ambitions of immigrating to Palestine, which was then a British mandate.
When Margot received a call-up notice from the Gestapo in July 1942 to report for a labor camp, the Frank family decided to go into hiding. They moved into a secret annex behind Otto Frank’s business premises on Prinsengracht. The annex was shared with another Jewish family, the Van Pels and, later, a dentist named Fritz Pfeffer. Margot’s demeanor during the period of hiding was one of quiet endurance and resilience. She spent her time studying and writing in her diary, though her writings have not survived.
On August 4, 1944, after more than two years in hiding, the inhabitants of the secret annex were betrayed and arrested by the Gestapo. Margot and her family were first taken to the Westerbork transit camp and then deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in September 1944. In Auschwitz, the men and women were separated. Margot and Anne stayed together, enduring the horrific conditions.
In November 1944, Margot and Anne were transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The camp was overcrowded, and conditions were dire, with little food and rampant disease. Margot and Anne both fell ill with typhus. Margot died in March 1945, just a few days before Anne, in the squalor of Bergen-Belsen. She was 19 years old.
My Daughter is nearly 19, and I just can’t imagine the pain I’d feel when she would have been murdered like Margot.
This poem is dedicated to Margot Frank—The Forgotten Sister
In the quiet shadow of history’s pages, Where the ink of sorrow stains the ages, There lived a girl with dreams so bright, Margot Frank, a beacon of light.
In a secret annex, hidden away, She wrote and read through each long day, Her heart was a symphony of hope and fear, Her whispered thoughts we can still hear.
A sister’s love, gentle and true, In Anne’s diary, she comes into view, A silent strength, a guiding star, In a world of darkness, shining afar.
Her eyes spoke volumes, her smile so rare, A fragile beauty beyond compare, In the face of terror, she stood so tall, A soul so young, yet wise to it all.
Dreams of freedom filled her nights, In her mind, she took flight, To places where hatred couldn’t reach, Where peace and love were within her reach.
Yet fate, cruel and unkind, Left such hopes far behind, In the cold and ruthless grasp, Of a war that silenced her final gasp.
But Margot’s spirit, gentle and bright, Still whispers softly in the night, A tale of courage, pure and deep, A legacy we’re bound to keep.
For in remembering her, we find our way, Through the shadows to a brighter day, Margot Frank, forever in our hearts, A symbol of the light that never departs.
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.
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As a father of three children, although they are all supposedly adults now, I often have nightmares and worries about them. I lie awake at night when they are out with friends. When they leave the house, there are a million worst-case scenarios that haunt my brain. There is some news you hope as a parent will have to hear.
Otto Frank, the father of Anne and Margot, heard that news under circumstances that none of us could fathom.
‘July 19, 1945: Otto Frank’s months-long search for his daughters Anne and Margot has come to an end. He has heard that his children are dead, murdered in the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp.
The lousy news prompts helper Miep Goes to hand over Anne’s diary, which she had kept, to Otto. Gies had hoped that she could return the notebooks to Anne herself. “I would have liked to see her face when she saw that they had been saved.”
Otto Frank has not yet opened the diary. Too painful.
Since he was liberated in Auschwitz last January, Frank has been looking for his family. He soon learned that his wife Edith died of exhaustion just before the liberation of the extermination camp. He had no idea about the fate of his daughters all those months. They are said to have left Auschwitz in the autumn of 1944 and been transferred to another camp. The search for his daughters kept him going.
In recent weeks, he has visited everyone in Amsterdam who might know something. He went to acquaintances, old neighbors, and camp survivors. Frank regularly checked the Red Cross death lists. And then he saw their names on the list—Annelies Marie Frank and Margot Betti Frank—with a cross behind them. And that could only mean one thing.
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.
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A diary is like a chronicle, a chronological summary of someone’s life, or at least part of it. Nowadays people use social media to document their daily life. Unlike social media, diaries are meant to be secret. That’s why the words from Holocaust diaries which were published after World War II, should be treated with the utmost respect, and seen as sacred.
Below are just a few words of diarists, some survived and some didn’t but all their words are powerful reminders.
ANNE FRANK Date: July 15, 1944 Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands “It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
ELIE WEISEL Date: 1945 Location: Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.”
RENIA SPIEGEL Date: July 15, 1942 Location: Przemyśl, Poland “My dear Diary, my guardian angel. I don’t know what will happen to me, where I’ll be in a few hours, days, weeks. Everything is so very uncertain. I am all alone now, and I am so afraid.”
VICTOR KLEMPERER Date: February 8, 1942 Location: Dresden, Germany “Today, once again, I had to endure hours of waiting, to be humiliated and harassed by the Gestapo. The fear never leaves me. I have become a shadow of my former self, a ghost wandering through the ruins of my life.”
ETTY HILLESUM Date: September 15, 1943 Location: Westerbork Transit Camp, The Netherlands “There are moments when I feel like my body and soul are being crushed under the weight of despair, but I will not let it break me. I want to be the thinking heart of these barracks. I want to be the voice that speaks even when everything else falls silent.”
ELSA RINDER June 10, 1943 Location: Lviv Ghetto “Mother fell ill today. There are no medicines to help her, and I feel so helpless. I spent the day by her side, holding her hand and praying. It’s all I can do. The thought of losing her is unbearable, yet I must stay strong for her and for my brother.”
MOSHE FLINKER June 21, 1943 Location: Brussels, Belgium “I watched as the SS took away our neighbors today. The sound of boots on the pavement, the cries for mercy—it will haunt me forever. I felt so powerless, hiding behind the curtains, unable to help. What kind of world allows such cruelty?”
On April 15, 1945, British forces, including units of the British Second Army and the 11th Armoured Division, entered Bergen-Belsen and liberated the remaining prisoners. The sight that greeted the liberators was horrifying. They found tens of thousands of emaciated and diseased prisoners, along with thousands of unburied corpses strewn throughout the camp.
The liberation of Bergen-Belsen brought the horrors of the Holocaust to the attention of the world in a particularly stark and poignant manner. Images and reports from the camp shocked the world, revealing the true extent of Nazi atrocities and the human suffering inflicted upon millions of innocent people.
Following the liberation, efforts were made to provide medical care, food, and sanitation to the survivors. However, despite these efforts, many prisoners succumbed to disease and malnutrition even after their liberation.
I was going to include photos of what the liberators found that day, but although a picture tells a thousand words—it never tells the full story, Therefore following are testimonies of some of the liberators.
Dick Williams: “But we went further on into the camp, and seen these corpses lying everywhere. You didn’t know whether they were living or dead. Most of them were dead. Some were trying to walk, some were stumbling, some on hands and knees, but in the lagers, the barbed wire around the huts, you could see that the doors were open. The stench coming out of them was fearsome. They were lying in the doorways – tried to get down the stairs and fallen and just died on the spot. And it was just everywhere.
Going into, more deeper, into the camp the stench got worse and the numbers of dead – they were just impossible to know how many there were…Inside the camp itself, it was just unbelievable. You just couldn’t believe the numbers involved… This was one of the things which struck me when I first went in, that the whole camp was so quiet and yet there were so many people there. You couldn’t hear anything, there was just no sound at all and yet there was some movement – those people who could walk or move – but just so quiet.
You just couldn’t understand that all those people could be there and yet everything was so quiet…It was just this oppressive haze over the camp, the smell, the starkness of the barbed wire fences, the dullness of the bare earth, the scattered bodies and these very dull, too, striped grey uniforms – those who had it – it was just so dull. The sun, yes the sun was shining, but they were just didn’t seem to make any life at all in that camp. Everything seemed to be dead. The slowness of the movement of the people who could walk. Everything was just ghost-like and it was just unbelievable that there were literally people living still there. There’s so much death apparent that the living, certainly, were in the minority.”
Harry Oakes: “About that time the chaps attached to 11th Armoured Division had seen a staff car come up to headquarters one day with a German officer, or two German officers I believe, blindfolded. And when they made enquiries they were told that they were from a Political Prison Camp at Belsen.
The Germans, anticipating us capturing the camp or over-running it, wanted the British to send in an advanced party to prevent these prisoners who were supposed to be infected with typhus from escaping. But the force we wanted to send in was too much. The Germans felt it wouldn’t have been fair so they agreed on a compromise that they would leave 1,000 Wehrmacht behind if we returned them within ten days. So we were standing by at Lüneburg, Lawrie and myself, to go into Belsen.”
Bill Lawrie: “We had this business of the staff car with the white flags telling us that there was a typhus hospital on the way ahead of us, and would we be willing to call a halt to any actual battle until this area was taken over in case of escapees into Europe and the ravage that would take place.
And as far as I know, the Brigadier believed this story, and we set sail that evening to have a look at this typhus hospital under a white flag. And there was no typhus hospital. There was barbed wire, sentry boxes, a huge garrison building for SS troopers, and Belsen concentration camp. And, as I say, we drove up in two, three jeeps, four jeeps maybe, in the evening, and we saw this concentration camp that we believed was a typhus hospital. But we knew immediately that it wasn’t a typhus hospital.”
Gilbert King: “I can remember going down this road with these Hungarian guards, soldiers, all got their bullets and grenades on their chest. We went in then to a very large military hospital and parked our vehicles for the time being and we was told that we would be going up to relieve the camp in the morning. And our Troop, which was C Troop, were the first up there to enter the gates. A medical team had gone through the gates, but we were the first military, and we had to round up the German military. One thing that I remember vividly was after entering the camp, you’d see the inmates which weren’t too bad – they got worse as they went down the camp – and as I stood there this, I don’t know if it was a man or a woman you couldn’t tell really, came up to me and kissed my boots. And it nearly brought tears to me eyes. It was very emotional.”
William Arthur Wood: “And then on the left hand side there were the huts and of course outside the huts were piles and piles of dead bodies, and living ones, we didn’t know which were which. In the huts themselves, equally, you didn’t know who was dead and who was alive unless they made, there was some movement you could see, because the dead and the living were all together – they hadn’t the energy to take the dead out and there were so many piled outside as I say that it was hard to see, to pick out the dead from the living…”
BBC recording from April 20, 1945 of Jewish survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp singing Hatikvah, today the national anthem of Israel, only five days after their liberation by Allied forces. (The words sung are from the original poem by Naftali Herz Imber.)
Ending with a quote from Margot Frank, one of the victims who was not liberated, but perished a few weeks earlier together with her younger sister, Anne Frank. I used this quote a few years ago in a speech for my eldest son‘s high school graduation, as a representative as the parents council.
“Times change, people change, thoughts about good and evil change, about true and false. But what always remains fast and steady is the affection that your friends feel for you, those who always have your best interest at heart.”
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.
The title is an excerpt from the diary of Etty Hillesum. Following are a few excerpts of several Holocaust diaries. What I find striking—is that despite the horrors, they still had a glimmer of hope.
Anne Frank June 12, 1942: “I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.”
July 15, 1944: “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
December 24, 1943: “What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it happening again.”
February 23, 1944: “I’ve found that there is always some beauty left — in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you.”
March 29, 1944: “It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
Anne Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany, and died in 1945 at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp.
Rutka Laskier February 5, 1943: “I cannot grasp that it is already 1943, four years since this hell began.”
February 20, 1943: “I have a feeling that I am writing for the last time. There is an Aktion [a Nazi operation] in town. I’m not allowed to go out, nobody is allowed to. The town has been cut off. Telephone connections have been cut off too. Jews are being taken out of their homes. There are constant shootings.”
April 24, 1943: “Today I’m worried. When will this misfortune end? It’s not a life, I am existing. Father is worried, because people have been taken away in Przemysl. Maniu [Rutka’s sister] wants to go to Israel. Mother wants to escape to Hungary.”
April 25, 1943: “I felt the air was again charged with unease, with horror. The sun was setting, and the silence so great that I thought I would hear my own heartbeats. Then shots rang out, a lot of shots, a hundred, no, thousands, each one echoing back from the woods, from the hills, from the distant city.”
Ruth Rutka was born on June 12, 1929, in Krakow, Poland, and died in 1943 at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
Chaim Kaplan October 16, 1939: “A week has passed since the curse of war first descended upon us, and what a week! What suffering! What agony! Warsaw, the city of the wise, has become a city of despair, of darkness, of hunger, and of plague. […] We find ourselves in a dark tunnel without light, and we are swallowed up in darkness.”
December 7, 1940: “Life in the ghetto is intolerable. With the passage of each day, the people grow weaker and weaker. The little food we have is hardly enough to sustain us. The streets are filled with the sick and the dying. Death has become our constant companion.”
February 16, 1941: “The Germans continue to tighten their grip on the ghetto. The walls grow higher, the restrictions more severe. We are prisoners in our own city, condemned to a life of suffering and humiliation. Yet, despite it all, the spirit of the people remains unbroken. We refuse to surrender to despair.”
June 1, 1942: “The deportations have begun. Every day, trains filled with Jews leave the ghetto, bound for unknown destinations. We know not where they go, only that they never return. The streets are filled with tears, with cries of anguish. Yet, even in the face of such unspeakable horror, we must find the strength to carry on.”
April 19, 1943 (during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising): “The ghetto is in flames, the streets filled with the sound of gunfire. The brave fighters of the Jewish resistance are battling the Germans, refusing to surrender to tyranny and oppression. Though the odds are against us, we will not go quietly into the night. We will fight until our last breath, until freedom is ours once more.”
Chaim Kaplan was born on September 19, 1880, in Horoyszcze, Poland, and died at Treblinka Concentration Camp in Poland in 1942.
Etty Hillesum Etty Hillesum was a young Jewish woman living in Amsterdam during the Holocaust, and her diary provides a remarkable and introspective account of her spiritual and emotional journey during that time. Here are some excerpts from her diary:
July 20, 1942: “We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds. Sometimes a single warm word is enough to heal an open sore.”
August 18, 1941: “In the end, love is stronger than hate and death. It is as strange and mysterious as life itself. It is the force that holds the universe together.”
November 29, 1942: “Sometimes I feel as if I am carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. But then I remember that I am only human, and that I can only do what I can. The rest is in the hands of fate.”
March 15, 1943: “I have made a decision to embrace life fully, no matter what the circumstances. Even in the darkest moments, there is still beauty to be found, still joy to be experienced. I will not let the darkness consume me.”
September 3, 1943: “I am learning to find peace within myself, to accept the things I cannot change, and to find strength in the face of adversity. It is a difficult journey, but one that I am determined to take.”
Etty Hillesum was born in Middleburg, Netherlands on January 15, 1914. She died on November 30, 1943 in Oświęcim, Poland.
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.
In the solemn and haunting grounds of Bergen-Belsen, where the echoes of a dark past resonate, exists an unexpected symbol of hope amidst the memories of suffering and loss: a single rose. This rose, though seemingly insignificant in the vastness of the camp’s history, carries within its delicate petals a story of resilience and defiance against the atrocities of humanity.
Amid despair, amidst the barbed wire fences and crumbling barracks, this rose blooms, its vibrant crimson hue stark against this backdrop of desolation. Its presence defies the horrors that once consumed this place, serving as a silent testament to the endurance of the human spirit.
Planted perhaps by an anonymous hand, its origins shrouded in mystery, the rose stands as a beacon of remembrance. It whispers tales of courage and survival, reminding visitors of the individuals who once walked these grounds, their lives unjustly taken but their spirits refusing to be extinguished.
As visitors solemnly tread the paths of Bergen-Belsen, their eyes catch sight of a solitary rose, a symbol that amidst the darkest of times, beauty and hope can still emerge. Its fragrance mingled with the heavy air of sorrow. It offers a fleeting moment of solace, a reminder that even in the most harrowing circumstances, humanity’s capacity for kindness and compassion endures.
The rose of Bergen-Belsen stands not only as a symbol of remembrance but also as a call to action, urging future generations to strive for a world where such atrocities can never again take root. Its presence serves as a poignant reminder that while the scars of history may never fully heal, they can inspire us to create a future built upon empathy, understanding, and peace.
It is important how you report on history. No one expects things to be always 100% accurate, but facts that can easily be verified should always be correct. In the case of Hanns Albin Rauter, I have seen him described as the Dutch head of Police during World War II, this is not true, he wasn’t Dutch, but Austrian. On Wikipedia I had seen the date of his execution as March 24, 1949, this is also incorrect, the date is a day later March 25, 1949.
He was the highest SS and Police Leader in the Netherlands during the period of 1940-1945. He was responsible for the repression of the Dutch resistance and supervised the deportation of the Dutch Jews to the concentration and death camps. Some sites refer to the occupied Netherlands, I don’t like that term, because that is giving an excuse to many of the Dutch who also played a part in governing the country as part of the Nazi regime.
On March 29, 1943, an order issued by Hanns Albin Rauter was published in most of the Dutch newspapers, “As of 10 April 1943, Jews are forbidden to stay in the provinces of Friesland, Drenthe, Groningen, Overijssel, Gelderland, Limburg, Noord-Brabant, and Zeeland. Jews who are currently in the aforementioned provinces must go to camp Vught.”
Anne Frank wrote of the news in her diary: ‘Rauter, some German bigwig, recently gave a speech. “All Jews must be out of the German-occupied territories before July 1st. The province of Utrecht will be cleansed of Jews (as if they were cockroaches) between April 1st and May 1st, and the provinces of North and South Holland between May 1st and June 1st. These poor people are being shipped off to filthy slaughterhouses like a herd of sick and neglected cattle. But I’ll say no more on the subject. My own thoughts give me nightmares!”
As I said earlier there were many Dutch involved in governing the Netherlands during World War 2. One of them was the leader of the NSB, the Dutch Nazi Union. Anton Mussert. Seen above on the left standing next to Adriaan Anton Hanns Albin Rauter and Arthur Seyss-Inquart,
Rauter was the main instigator of terror through summary arrests and internment in the Netherlands. The SS set up a concentration camp named Herzogenbusch after the city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch but located in the neighboring town of Vught gave the camp its name—Kamp Vught. In total this camp detained 31,000 people, of whom about 735 were killed.
Also, his SS manned a so-called polizeiliches Durchgangslager or police transit camp near Amersfoort, known as Kamp Amersfoort, in fact, a concentration camp, where approximately 35,000 people were detained and maltreated and 650 people (Dutch and Russian) died.
Rauter’s SS also managed the Kamp Westerbork (Polizeiliches DurchgangslagerWesterbork), the place from which 110,000 plus Dutch Jews were deported to Nazi concentration and extermination camps, mainly Auschwitz and Sobibor.
75% of all Dutch Jews and Jews living in the Netherlands were murdered by the Nazis. Additionally, almost 20,000 Dutch people were arrested because of their work with the resistance, of which, two thousand resistance fighters were executed. Others were sent to detention centers or to concentration camps. Hanns Albin Rauter was one of the main architects.
On the night of 6 March 1945, Rauter was severely injured in a resistance attack. A day later, the Germans executed 263 political prisoners in retaliation. When the war ended, Rauter was still recovering in a German hospital, where he was arrested by the British. Rauter was handed over to the Dutch government by the British, in 1948, and was tried by a special court in The Hague. Rauter was sentenced to death on May 4th, 1948. He appealed to the Court of Cassation on May 12, 1948. The case was tried for the Bijzondere Raad van Cassatie (‘special court of cassation’) on October 20th and 22nd, 1948 in the building of the Hoge Raad (‘supreme court’) of the Netherlands. The death sentence was confirmed on January 12, 1949. He was executed on March 25, 1949.
Rauter, like several other high-ranking Nazis, had a scar on his cheek. This was not caused by the war but was as a result of dueling. These so-called dueling scars (or “Schmisse” in German) have been seen as a badge of honor since as early as 1825. Alternatively referred to as “Mensur scars,” “smite,” “Schimitte,” or “Renommierschmiss,” they became popular among upper-class Austrians and Germans involved in academic fencing at the start of the 20th century. Consequently, many of these same upper-class men who fashioned them found themselves wearing German army uniforms in both World War I and II. German military laws permitted men to wage duels of honor until World War I. During the Third Reich, the Mensur was prohibited at all universities following the party line.
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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.
Something I had not been aware of, but of course, it makes sense that the Nazis also used trams to transport the Dutch Jews to the concentration camps in the Netherlands.
The GVB is the company that runs the trams in Amsterdam and has had that name since 1943. A new film and book titled Verdwenen Stad (Lost City) by filmmaker Willy Lindwer and writer Guus Luijters uncovered a painful truth.
Invoices show that there were approximately 900 tram journeys for the deportation of the Amsterdam Jews, for which the GVB declared and received more than 9,000 guilders (converted to now more than 61,000 euros). The Central Jewish Consultation (CJO) would meet with the GVB and the municipality to request the money back. According to the researchers, the GVB never acknowledged guilt, expressed remorse or offered financial compensation to the deported Jews or their relatives.
An estimated 48,000 Amsterdam Jews were transported by trams to Central Station and Muiderpoort Station between mid-July 1942 and the end of August 1944. From there, trains went to the concentration and extermination camps via the Westerbork and Vught Transit Camps.
Every month, the transport company sent invoices to the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung (Central Office for Jewish Emigration), the agency that coordinated the persecution of Jews in Amsterdam. The Nazis paid the GVB bills with the money that the Jews had to hand in from 1941, as can be read in the book.
The painful truth does not stop there. The most astonishing aspect of Luijters’ discovery is the GVB’s persistent efforts to collect outstanding payments after the war had ended. A note on the final invoice highlighted that the payment was overdue at the time of liberation, and it revealed a hired debt collection agency enlisted in 1947 to recover the 80 guilders owed. This attempted collection, years after the atrocities, has been met with shock and condemnation, underscoring the moral complexities surrounding businesses involved in the Holocaust.
The last two bills, from July and August 1944, were never paid. Anne Frank was transported to Camp Westerbork on August 8, 1944, on one of those trams, as was Etty Hillesum.
On August 8, 1944, the eight people in hiding from the Secret Annex were transported by tram from the House of Detention at the Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen to CS to be taken by train to Westerbork Camp with 65 other Jews.
I am not sure what is worse—the use of the trams or the fact they made a profit from death transports and still tried to make money after the war. The GVB never showed any scruples.
History of Sorts 
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