Sobibor

  • You hate me simply because I am a Jew. You hate me just because I am not a pure Aryan. Yet by your own definition I look more Aryan then your leader, the same man who has told you to hate me. You hate me because you lack the intellectual capacity to recognize that your…

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  • Music in Westerbork.

    Compared to other concentration camps ,Westerbork was ‘reasonably’ safe and life was less harsh there, But that is also what made it a more sinister place. From 1942 to 1945, Westerbork was a transit camp (Durchgangslager) located in the Netherlands. As a transit camp, Westerbork served as a temporary collection point for Jews in the…

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  • I never met Lia, in fact today is the first time I came across her picture. It would have been her 93rd birthday two days ago. She was born in Amsterdam, 20 September 1932 . And murdered in Sobibor, 2 July 1943. Reached the age of 10 years. When I was born she would have…

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  • European Hate

    When you look at the picture you might think that it is an innocent portrayal , of a street somewhere in the Netherlands. A typical Dutch scene. Someone cycling, two bikes parked against a sign. What could be hateful here? It is actually the sign itself that has a message of hate. It says “Jews…

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  • Graphic photos of the Holocaust often tell such harrowing stories, but sometimes it takes just an inventory list of everyday items that are more shocking because it tells the story of people like you and me. They ate the same food, wore the same clothes, and used identical cups and plates. It was only because…

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  • Industrial Murder

    One of the most disturbing aspects of the Holocaust is the “wholesale murder” approach the Nazis took, the industrialization of death. The gassing already started in 1939 as part of the T4 program, the murder of the disabled. What is really sickening is the fact that the first of such killings was at the request…

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  • “As long as a name is mentioned, someone is not forgotten,” meaning if you mention the name of one person, that person is remembered. I know it sounds quite obvious, but when you think about it for a minute, it is the essential first step to ensure that the Holocaust will not happen again. I…

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  • Olympic gymnast Judikje Simons, together with her husband Bernard Themans, cared for Jewish orphans in Utrecht. The Jewish couple ran the Central Israelite Orphanage on Nieuwegracht in Utrecht. In March 1943, Judikje and Bernard, along with their daughter and son, the Dutch orphans, and the orphanage staff, were deported to Sobibor. RefugeesAs “father and mother”…

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  • The term ‘work extension’ was a euphemistic term for the actual goal of the deportations: to work to death those who were healthy enough to work and to murder all others. At least 102,000 Jewish Dutch people were murdered or died from exhaustion and diseases. Auschwitz-BirkenauIt is not exactly known when the Nazis decided to…

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  • The Forgotten Jews

    Jewish Soldiers in the Dutch Military During World War II When discussing Jewish war victims, fallen soldiers may not be the first to come to mind. However, hundreds of Jewish men attempted to resist the advancing Nazi regime with weapons in hand. Several dozen of them perished during the German invasion in May 1940. The…

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