Holocaust

  • The picture above is a wedding picture of Betje van Bergen-de Levie and her husband Philip Hartog van Bergen. I wish I could tell you that they celebrated many anniversaries. But they didn’t even get a chance to celebrate the 1st major anniversary which is celebrated in the Netherlands, the Twelve and a half year…

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  • Nel Hissink aka Cornelia van den Brink-Kossen On October 27, 1943, two Dutch resistance women—Nel Hissink, and Truus van Lier were executed in Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg, Reina Geerlings, was executed less than a month later, on November 24, 1943. All three women were shot. This was done in secret as it was not customary to shoot women.…

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  • Rita and Sandor Joachim Krammer met their death on 26 October 1942, Nazis murdered them at Auschwitz. Rita was born on 5 January 1935 in Groningen, the Netherlands. Her little brother, Sander Joachim, was born on 15 March 1937. Their mother, Regina Krammer-Gunsberger. was born in Deutschkreuz in Austria, and their father, Jacob Krammer, in…

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  • On 25 October 1944, Fake Krist, a fanatic employee of the German Sicherheitsdienst, was shot dead by the Haarlem resistance, in the Netherlands Initially, the attack was attributed to Hannie Schaft’s resistance group, but later it turned out that a police squad with members from Halfweg, resistance group had liquidated Fake Krist. To this end,…

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  • 160 Days

    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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  • The birth of a baby is a joyous occasion, even in war time. I don’t know if it is a specific Jewish tradition, but I know it is a Dutch one, that the birth of a child is announced in the newspapers. As did Harry’s parents, Willy and Rose, when he was born on October…

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  • The Great Dictator

    To be honest, I was never a great fan of Charlie Chaplin. I was always more of a fan of the Laurel and Hardy-type of humour. I find that Charlie Chaplin’s movies are quite dated when compared to the aforementioned, Laurel and Hardy films. However, there is one notable exception. There has been one Chaplin…

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  • Remembering Jesaia Swart

    The number of victims of the Holocaust is just so difficult to fathom. When you talk about millions it just becomes a number it is just something that our human mind can’t comprehend. It is often better to remember those who were murdered, one by one. Today I am remembering Jesaia Swart. He was murdered…

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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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  • Nathan was born in Arnhem, on 6 April 1931. Murdered in Auschwitz, on 12 October 1942. He reached the age of 11 years. In the last years of his short life, he had to witness some of the following “laws.” From July 1940, the freedom of Jews is curtailed by the introduction of anti-Jewish measures,…

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