Auschwitz
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Like Anne Frank ,Etty (Esther) Hillesum, also kept a diary during World War 2,describing her experiences of the Holocaust. She was born in the city of Middelburg in the southwest of the Netherlands, on January 15,1914. She was the daughter of Levie Hillesum and Riva Bernstein. In 1932 she moved to Amsterdam to study law…
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It is strange sometimes how one thing can draw your attention to another. I did a piece recently on the German national anthem, that led me to look at the Dutch national anthem. “Wilhelmus van Nassouwe”, usually known just as “Wilhelmus” is the national anthem of the Netherlands. It dates back to at least 1572,…
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I usually include a photograph when I write about the youngest victims of the Nazi regime. But I could not find a picture of poor little Mirjam Rosalie de Leeuw. In a way I am happy about that, I have looked into too many eyes of the innocent souls that were brutally murdered ,and regardless…
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I always found it hard to understand why the Nazis kept the shoes of those they murdered. Of all clothing items, shoes are the most personal. Even today you don’t go to a shoe shop and just pick a pair of the shelves. You sit down and you fit them first to see if they…
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Whoever has the youth has the future. Whoever kills the youth destroys the future. I can never understand the mindset of murdering innocent lives. No matter what ideology, any normal human being must know that killing a little healthy, happy child is wrong, more then wrong, it is evil and despicable. Yet there were so…
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An estimated 17.3 million people were murdered by the German Nazi regime and their collaborators between 1933 and 1945, according to data published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). The estimates are based on the regime’s own reports as well as demographic studies of population loss during World War II. The numbers are…
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Dear Catharina Vrouwtje de Groot, today there should have been 80 candles on a birthday cake. 80 candles for you to blow out and make a wish on your 80th birthday. But you never had any candles on any of your birthday cakes. You were born on September 20,1941 in Arnhem, in the Netherlands ,…
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The Couzijn family consisted out of 3 people. Marcus, his wife Hanni end their daughter Mirjam. Three people who were at the start of family life. Yet they were denied that most basic right, life. Not only were they denied the right of life they were also denied the dignity of being buried as a…
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Benjamin Hartog “Benno” ter Berg was born on July 4, 1924 in Assen, the Netherlands. He was murdered in Auschwitz on September 30,1942. The picture was taken from his diary, the newspaper article on the left is about a meeting of the NJN,(Nederlandse Jeugdbond voor Natuurstudie), the Dutch Youth union for Nature study. Of which…
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This is not the famous composer Joseph Strauss as a young man. This is actually another young man called Josef Strauss. Technically he never became a man because he was murdered in Auschwitz on August 17,1942. He was aged 17. Unlike his famous name bearer there is very little known about Josef, yet from the…
