Tag Archives: Suicide

Under the Pressure of Circumstances

I was going to do a piece on the often forgotten-victims of the Holocaust, those who did want to be captured alive and decided to take their own lives. But when I looked at the list of suicides of Jews in the Netherlands during World War II, I discovered there were hundreds. Many of them decided to take their own lives between 11-16 May 1940, those were the first few days of the invasion and occupation by Nazi Germany of the Netherlands.

Rather than go into the hundreds I decide to focus on one family.

The picture at the top of the post is a wedding Photo of Robert Paul Belinfante and Marianne Belinfante Lisser.

Marianne and Robert attempted suicide on 13 May 1940 in their hometown of Laag Keppel. Marianne was pregnant at that time. Robert died and Marianne survived, but she lost the baby. Marianne passed away on 10 January 1944 whilst in hiding.

Robert Paul Belinfante was born in 1905 in Amsterdam. His father was Jewish, but his mother was not. It was a secularized family. That meant it was not bound by religious ties or traditions.

Robert studied medicine in Amsterdam. He took his medical exam on May 20, 1931. In Laag-Keppel, doctor Bosch was active as a general practitioner. During his studies, Robert had already replaced Dr Bosch once. Bosch then came up with an offer. If Robert were to work for a year in the practice in Laag-Keppel for room and board and Bosch would be satisfied with him after that year, then young boarder Robert could take over the practice and the associated pharmacy. However, a year before his farewell, doctor Bosch suddenly died on January 11, 1933. Robert then got the opportunity to take over the practice in Keppel and he grabbed that opportunity with both hands.

In January 1933 Bob started his practice in the house of doctor Bosch Robert married his fiancé Marianne Lisser in Bloemendaal on 20 January 1934 and the young couple settled in Laag-Keppel.

Marianne Lisser was the daughter of Hartog Lisser and Abigaël Benjamins.

For several years the Belinfantes had a good life. However, the couple must have followed the events with anxiety on 10 May 1940. Although Marianne was pregnant, the German invasion changed the perspective of a young family with Jewish roots to an extremely black scenario. Robert and his sisters Frieda and Renée were half-Jewish, but because he was married to the Jewish Marianne, he was deemed completely Jewish according to the Nuremberg racial legislation. On the evening of May 11, Robert contacted his neighbour, engineer Harry Ernst Deleth. Ernst Deleth noticed that Bob was very pessimistic. On Sunday, 12 May 1940 the Belinfantes decided to take their own lives. Robert wrote three moving farewell letters on that Sunday: one to his mother in Amsterdam, one to the patients in his practice and one to Harry Ernst Deleth and his wife. Below is the text of the letter he wrote to his patients.:

Dear Friends

I would like to say goodbye to you all with a few words.
First of all, I thank you all for your trust and your friendship, which have made my task here a joy. I would rather continue my task here for a long time. But I know that in a few days this will no longer be allowed.
That is why my wife and I have preferred to leave this sad world.
We wish you all the strength and courage in this difficult time.

This is such a heartbreaking story but also a very important one and needs to be told. They were just a few of the thousands.

sources

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/695198/zelfdoding-in-de-tweede-wereldoorlog-namenlijst

https://gelderland.75jaarvrijheid.nl/1940/2310522/13-mei-1940-de-dag-waarop-huisarts-belinfante-uit-keppel-het-opgeeft

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/637383/robert-paul-belinfante

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/234760/marianne-belinfante-lisser

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The Trial of a Traitor

Below is the transcript of a Dutch court case, The defendant is only referred to as Mrs C. That is how the Dutch legal system still works nowadays, the name of a defendant is only indicated by the first letter of the surname.

The transcript dates 7 September 1947. Mrs C. is accused of treason and collaboration.

I don’t know what sentence she got but I presume she receive the death penalty.

Indictment, Accusation and Conviction of Mrs C. from Blasiusstraat in Amsterdam, who was involved with others in betraying Jewish families, including the family of Michel Gompers and Bertha Vogel.

“The accused Mrs C. was accused that, being Dutch, during the hostile occupation of the Empire in Europe:

A: Has generally shown National Socialist affiliation by joining the Dutch People’s Service in or around 1944; NSB window posters in the windows of her home, as well as attending NSB meetings and reading the magazines Volk en Vaderland and De Daad.

B: In or about 1943 M. Gompers and his wife and B. Vogel, a Jewish family, exposed them to detention or restriction of freedom by or on behalf of the enemy, by repeatedly providing the German police with information and instructions regarding both persons, at least as a result of which they were both arrested on or about 9 August 1943 by officers of the SD, as a result of which they provided aid and support to the enemy; on the basis of which actions it must be deemed to have deliberately acted contrary to the interests of the Dutch people.

The testimony of M. Gompers, as recorded in the official report dated March 4, 1946, by two police officers of the Municipality of Amsterdam, read: During the major Jewish roundup in June 1943, the Germans also came to my house in the Blasiusstraat in Amsterdam. My wife and I were not apprehended at the time, because my wife had proof from Dr Peeters, who was able to submit, stating that she was a carrier of typhus bacilli. I then saw and heard from my home that Mrs C. said to one of the German officers: “that woman is not ill, she always walks outside”, to which the German said: “that has nothing to do with you, what I do is good.” I then heard Mrs C. say to the bystanders: “We are going to Euterpestraa tomorrow”. The next day two men indeed came, who said they were from the SD. They told us, after we read the statement of Dr Peeters, but not taken with them. On the evening of August 9, 1943, I was in my house together with my wife, despite the statement of Dr Peeters arrested by two SD men and then transferred to Euterpestraat. Shortly afterwards my wife and I were transferred via the Hollandse Schouwburg to the Jewish Hospital. My wife, as I later learned, committed suicide during her transport to Westerbork by taking poison. On September 19, 1943, I received word of her death; I was able to escape from the hospital myself.

Mrs C. herself stated the following at the hearing:

In 1943, during a raid on Jews in the street where I lived, I said to the German police: “The good Jews take you away and the bitches leave you alone”, pointing in the direction of the house of the M. Gompers. I was at odds with the Gompers family because my children, who had been to the East Mark, were often teased in the neighbourhood. Furthermore, I could not bear the fact that many Jews with whom I lived on good terms were arrested and taken away, while the Gompers family constantly managed to evade arrest. I then drew the attention of the German police to the Gompers family during the aforementioned raid. The Gompers family was not arrested during that raid. Gompers and his wife B. Vogel were taken away by the Germans sometime later. The testimonies are unfavourable to me because I was disliked in the neighbourhood; since my children were frequently teased, I often threatened the German police, but without carrying out my threat….

Judgment, Conviction and Sentence rendered on September 9, 1947, in which the accused is declared guilty of the aforementioned which is declared proven and imposes the following measures on the accused:

1): internment whereby it is suggested that the duration thereof be limited to four years and that the time spent by the accused in pre-internment from 8 June 1945 be deducted from this, so that internment should end on 8 June 1949.

2): Deprivation of the right to vote and eligibility in elections held pursuant to statutory regulations.

Determines, as necessary, that the administration of the accused’s property shall end within three months after the internment has ended.”

sources

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/32364/bertha-gompers-vogel

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/641263/verraad-beschuldigd-veroordeeld.

The Sad Story of Emma Van Essen-Frankenstein

The story of Emma van Essen-Frankenstein is a story of desperation. Her maiden name is also the name of a famous horror story, but Emma’s story is more horrific than that of her fictional namesake.

She was born in Salzderkilden, Germany on 18 March 1862. In May 1893 she married Dutchman, Abraham Levie van Essen, and I say Dutchman because the majority of Dutch Jews considered themselves Dutch more than Jewish.

The couple lived in Veenendaal in the Netherlands and on 25 February 1894, they had a baby son, Leenhart Hermann van Essen. None of them expected what fate awaited them after the Nazis occupied the Netherlands in May 1940.

Emma had 2 granddaughters. Veronie Suze Carola van Essen was born in Amsterdam on 3 August 1928, and Elly Vera Louise van Essen born in Amsterdam, 25 February 1926.

The 2 girls and their mother Rachel Julie van Essen-Lopes de Leao Laguna

Veronie Suze Carola, the youngest granddaughter, attended the Protestant secondary modern on the Kerkewijk. Because she was Jewish, she had to leave that school in 1941. This was one of the Nazi laws that were brought in.

I don’t know why Leendert Hermann decided to go into hiding, but I can guess his reasons. They went into hiding on the Veluwe near Voorthuizen. They were caught. Their valuables possessions were confiscated by the SD. A young municipal official who supervised the house being emptied removed and preserved the mezuzah at the entrance. The mezuzah was exhibited after the war.

On 14 September 1942, Emma van Essen-Frankenstein left for Amsterdam, probably under Nazi orders. There, on 5 December 1942, at the age of 80, she took her own life. She would have had a good idea by then of what fate awaited her. All of her family were eventually murdered.

Abraham Levie van Essen was murdered in Auschwitz on 28 January 1944.

Leenhart Hermann van Essen was murdered in Auschwitz on 2 November 1943.

Rachel Julie van Essen-Lopes de Leao Laguna was murdered in Auschwitz on 27 August 1943.

Veronie Suze Carola van Essen was murdered in Auschwitz on 27 August 1943.

Elly Vera Louise van Essen was murdered in Auschwitz on 3 September 1943.

I know that suicide is often a taboo subject but I believe if that aspect of the Holocaust is not addressed, we will never really know the true extent of the horrors.

sources

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/26974/emma-van-essen-frankenstein

https://www.openarch.nl/hua:81E4FC8D-59BF-4E58-B766-53ABA54DD3B6

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/Abraham-Levie-van-Essen/02/41333

Remembering Fré Cohen

One of the aspects of the Holocaust that is often forgotten about, maybe on purpose, is suicide. There were so many who in their desperation only saw one way out and that was by taking their own lives.

Frederika Sophia (Fré) Cohen was born on 11 August 1903 in Amsterdam. She was the oldest daughter of diamond cutter Levie Cohen, a member of the Social-Democrat Jewish community in Amsterdam. Like many other diamond workers, Levie Cohen was often out of work. Therefore, the Cohen family moved to Antwerp in Belgium, where there was more work in the diamond business. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the family returned to Amsterdam.

Fré Cohen was a successful and image-defining woman in the men’s world of graphic design. She was of great importance to the Amsterdam School. In her work, both the formal language and the ideals of the Amsterdam School are clearly expressed. She designed graphic print work for the city of Amsterdam, for the socialist movement, such as the Social Democratic Workers Party (SDAP), the Arbeiders Jeugd Centrale (AJC), trade unions, and cooperatives.

Her Jewish origins are in keeping with the story of the Amsterdam School, which had an important basis in the Jewish proletariat, including the diamond working movement.

She had a large output of rather varied printed matter, from window bills to bookplates, diplomas, illustrations, running headers, baby announcements, and postcards. There are also some three-dimensional works such as boxes and scale models. She created folders and maps for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, in a modernist style using gold, red and blue. Besides, she made paintings, portraits, drawings, woodcuts, and linocuts.

In 1935, the Maastricht publisher A.A.M. Stols publishes Cohen’s work in Het Schoone Boek. 15) Even though his interest is mainly in bibliophile productions and not in large, machine-made editions.

Stols’s review of Cohen’s work demonstrates the success of publishers such as the World Library and Querido that use new techniques and attract ‘artists and innovators in this field.

During the occupation, in 1941 and 1942, Cohen made picture postcards for the Gebroeders Spanjerberg company, with traditional costumes from Huizen, Bunschoten-Spakenburg, and Zeeland towns.

In November 1941, Cohen was appointed as a teacher at the Jewish applied arts school W.A. van Leer. Not only Dutch Jews but also German emigrants, such as Stefan Schlesinger and Leon Kratzenstein, taught at the Jewish applied arts school Van Leer.

The teachers of the school were initially exempt from deportation. Fré Cohen was one of the gesperrden (exempt), but in May 1942 received a call-up for Arbeitseinsatz and then went into hiding. First with J. Uylings in Amsterdam, where she hid for three weeks. Then she went into hiding in Diemen, with her friend Rie Keesje, after that in Hilversum, with the parents of Pieter Brattinga, and finally, she hid in Lochem with Margo Vos and finally in Borne, with Hendrik and Mien Zomer. During that period she continued to work illegally when she could. On 12 June 1943, she was arrested by the Germans in Borne. In haste, she took the pills she had hoarded for such an emergency. After two days in a coma, she died on 14 June 1943 at the age of 39 at a hospital in Hengelo.

Such a tragedy and all the art that would never be created.

sources

Fre Cohen

https://www.hetschip.nl/en/visitors/activities/exhibition-fre-cohen

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How did Michael Hutchence die?

Before I go into the story of Michael Hutchence, I have to advise that this blog does contain some erotic imagery, The imagery is meant to illustrate some acts. It will become clear why I am using this later in the blog.

Michael K Hutchence was an Australian musician, singer-songwriter and actor. He co-founded the rock band INXS, which sold over 75 million records worldwide and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2001. He was the lead singer and lyricist of INXS from 1977 until his death.

On the morning of 22 November 1997, Hutchence was found dead in his hotel room in Sydney. His death was reported by the New South Wales Coroner to be the result of suicide by hanging.

As vocalist for the very popular rock band INXS, He was ideally-situated to indulge in sexual thrill-seeking and, by most accounts, he applied himself with a diligence well beyond that of the mere dilettante. “Twosomes, threesomes, foursomes, hidden cameras – Michael was into all that,” according to his friend, Nick Egan. How about sado-masochism, choking and tieing-up? “Yeah, yeah, he did everything,” said his lover, Paula Yates.

Many people have judged him for that behaviour, but there is nothing to indicate that this was not consensual.

Not an actual picture of Michael Hutchence, this is just to illustrate one of the acts he indulged in.

His death was initially believed to have been a sex act that went wrong, although it may have contributed to it, there were several other factors.

In August 1992, Hutchence and his then girlfriend Helena Christensen were riding their bikes at night on a street in Copenhagen when he refused to move for a taxi. The taxi driver then assaulted him, causing Michael to fall backwards and hit his head on the roadway. He suffered a fractured skull in the altercation. He did not immediately seek medical assistance for the injury, instead he waited several days before seeing a doctor. As a result, his fractured skull left him with an almost complete loss of the sense of smell and significant loss of taste. And left him with two large areas of permanent damage.

This injury led to periods of depression and increased levels of aggression; he had not fully recovered after two weeks in a Copenhagen hospital. According to INXS bandmate Beers, Hutchence brandished a knife and threatened to kill him during the 1993 recording of Full Moon, Dirty Hearts on the isle of Capri. Beers recalled, “Over those six weeks, Michael threatened or physically confronted nearly every member of the band.

Filmmaker Richard Lowenstein who made a documentary about Michael said

“One of the biggest tragedies is that because he was a rock star, people just associate those things with rock star-type behaviour.He’d burst into tears and say, ‘It’s all about taste and smell that I’m so depressed… If I have a baby, I won’t be able to smell my own child.'”

On 22 July 1996, Yates gave birth to her daughter with Hutchence, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence.

Another thing that greatly effected him was At the 1996 Brit Awards, Noel Gallagher from Oasis said about Michael Hutchence ,after Michael had presented them with an award ” A fucking has-been should not give an award to a gonna be” in front of the whole world. This was totally uncalled for.

Hutchence was found dead in Room 524 of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at Double Bay, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, on the Saturday morning of November 22, 1997.

The 37-year-old, who had checked into the hotel four days earlier under the name ‘Mr Murray River’, appeared to have hanged himself with his snake skin belt.

A post-mortem examination found alcohol, cocaine, codeine, Prozac, Valium and other prescribed benzodiazepines – or ‘benzos’ – in Hutchence’s urine and blood. He left no suicide note.

In the hours before his death Hutchence had spoken by telephone to Yates, the former wife of Boomtown Rats lead singer and Live Aid planner Bob Geldof, and to Geldof himself.

Hutchence had been hoping Yates would visit Australia with their 16-month-old daughter Tiger Lily and two of her three daughters with Geldof, ahead of the last leg of an INXS world tour. But Paula Yates decided to stay in London.

Yates and Geldof were embroiled in a bitter custody dispute and Hutchence learnt on the morning of the 22nd of November 1997,the children would not be coming out. That meant Yates would not be coming either.The night before his death Hutchence shared dinner with his father Kel.

Between 11pm and 5am the next day he was with his onetime lover, actor Kym Wilson, and her then boyfriend Andrew Rayment at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The trio drank vodka, beer, champagne and cocktails during the night.

Hutchence was apparently upset when he spoke to another former girlfriend, Michele Bennett, at 9.54am. Ms Bennett went to the hotel but could not rouse him by telephone or knocking on his door.

A maid found Hutchence dead behind his room door at 11.50am. Less than three months later, the police case was closed.

Michael and his dad Kel

So many people have been so judgmental , claiming he was a sexual deviant and that his death was caused by being kinky.

The official verdict of the New South Wales coroner Derrick Hand is that the singer committed suicide. However, others say that the death Of Michael Hutchence was caused by a bout of “autoerotic asphyxiation” which resulted in the singer accidentally strangling himself.

I tend to believe the suicide verdict. Michael never recovered from the assault, he was mocked by fellow musicians and he had a feeling he would not see his child again. Which clearly led to depression

sources

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/suicidal-sex-1.219174#:~:text=The%20official%20verdict%20of%20the,the%20singer%20accidentally%20strangling%20himself.

https://news.sky.com/story/inxs-star-michael-hutchence-and-the-secret-he-took-to-his-grave-11838007

The Coroner’s Report Into INXS’ Michael Hutchence’s Death Has Been Released
The Coroner’s Report Into INXS’ Michael Hutchence’s Death Has Been Released

The good fortune of Joseph Meister but yet a tragic end.

I hear a lot of fear mongering in relation to vaccines. One argument given by some people for not taking a vaccine is that one of the side effect is death. Usually these arguments are given with the back up of a meme, but never with actual facts.

It is true that one of the side effects could be death, but this can be said for every medical procedure. If the adhesive used on a plaster can cause an allergic reaction in people causing death.

When it comes to vaccines it is less then 1 percent of a risk. Not taking it will give a much higher risk in death.

On July 4th,1885, a rabid dog attacked a 9-year-old boy from Alsace, France. His name was Joseph Meister. The vicious and crazed dog proceeded to throw the boy to the ground and bite him in 14 places, including the hand, legs and thighs. Some of the wounds were so deep that he could hardly walk. Twelve hours later, at 8:00 in the evening, a local doctor named Weber treated Joseph’s most serious wounds by cauterizing, or sealing them, with searing doses of carbolic acid, in and of itself a horribly painful process.

This procedure did not help on July 6,1885, the boy’s mother brought her son to Paris, she suspected the boy had contracted rabies. She had heard rumours of a scientist who could prevent rabies. This scientist turned out to be Louis Pasteur.

Pasteur was so taken by the boy’s plight that he consulted two physicians, Alfred Vulpain and Jacques Grancher at a weekly meeting of the French Academy of Sciences. They, too, were struck by the need to do something, and to do it fast. Pasteur later reported, “Since the death of the child appeared inevitable, I resolved, though not without great anxiety, to try the method which had proved consistently successful on the dogs.”

Bacteriologist Louis Pasteur, who kept kennels of mad dogs in a crowded little laboratory and was hounded by medical criticism, had never tried his rabies vaccine on a human being before.

Pasteur escaped the medical license dilemma by having his medical colleagues present when the vaccine was first administered on July 6, 1885, some 60 hours after the initial dog attack. Mrs. Meister expressed little concern over the potential dangers of the experimental vaccine because she was so fearful that her son would die and she readily gave Pasteur her consent. The first injection was made in a fold of skin covering the boy’s right upper abdomen. Over a period of three weeks, Joseph was given 13 such inoculations.

For three weeks Pasteur watched anxiously at the boy’s bedside. To his overwhelming joy, the boy recovered.

Joseph Meister did not only recover but also went to work for Louis Pateur in later life. For decades he worked as a concierge at the Institut Pasteur, Louis Pasteur’s laboratory where some of the most important discoveries elucidating infectious diseases were made.

On June 14, 1940, the Nazis invaded Paris from Germany. Fearing for their safety, Meister, then 64 years old, sent his family away and stayed behind to protect the Pasteur Institute from the German soldiers. Ten days later, on June 24, 1940, Joseph Meister was overcome with guilt because he was certain that his family had been captured by the Nazis. He committed suicide by a gas furnace. In an ironic and sad twist of fate, his family was safe. They returned to the Institute just a few hours after Meister committed suicide.

Although his life was cut short by suicide. If he hadn’t received the vaccine against rabies he would have died aged 9.

I can understand why some people are reluctant to take any of the Covid 19 vaccines today. The misinformation that goes around on social media is phenomenal. But do not base your decision on anecdotal evidence(which is often made up) but base it on medical scientific facts. Inform yourself.

If I was to believe some of these antivaxers , this blog would not have been possible because I should be dead, given the fact I had a double does of the Moderna vaccine. Several members of my family received different vaccines and I am glad to report they are all alive and well.

sources

https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/joseph-meister/m051w1w?hl=en

https://time.com/3925192/rabies-vaccine-history/

https://historydaily.org/the-life-and-death-of-joseph-meister

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/louis-pasteurs-risky-move-to-save-a-boy-from-almost-certain-death

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The Suicide of Elsa Reininger—A Forgotten Holocaust Victim

A few weeks ago, I discovered a Jewish Cemetery in Limerick. It was across from a landmark pub in the city called the The Hurlers Pub. There was a small laneway across from Hurlers leading to the small cemetery.

One of the graves was of Simon Gewurz. He was originally from Bratislava in Slovakia and moved to Limerick, where he died in 1944. I recently found out that he was the last Rabbi in Limerick.

In 1938, he conducted the funeral service of Elsa Reininger.

Elsa’s story was a tragic one. She had fled Austria after Hitler annexed the country. Reininger was her maiden name, and later to Hofler when she married Berisch Hofler, a Polish Jew. The couple had one daughter, Margarete.

Austria was annexed into the Third Reich on 13 March 1938. The day after German troops entered Austrian territory, it became the so-called Anschluss. The Nazis were greeted by cheering Austrians with Nazi salutes and Nazi flags. A published law declared Austria, now one of the lands of the German Empire, and named Ostmark. On 10 April in Austria, a plebiscite was held and it was not a secret ballot. According to official Reich data, with 99.08% of the population voting, the Anschluss was approved by 99.75%.

Almost immediately, attacks were carried out on the Austrian Jewish community in an attempt to compel them to leave the country. They were beaten up, forced to sell their businesses, scrub footpaths and clean public toilets on their hands and knees.

Shortly after the Anschluss, the Hoflers left Austria. It is not clear how they were able to leave the country. Both Elsa and her husband ended up in Limerick, Ireland. Their daughter Margarete had married a widower, Gaskel Kaitcer, in the United Kingdom. Gaskel had family in Limerick, the Tobin family, so the couple decided to move to Limerick. Margarete soon found work as a violinist in one of Limerick’s cinemas.

In September 1938, Berisch visited his daughter and stayed as a lodger with Gaskel’s cousin, Annie Tobin and her husband at 18 Newenham Street. Elsa followed in October 1938. Elsa had arrived in Limerick from England, where her passport was stamped for a 48 hours stay, basically a short-term visa.

The experiences she witnessed in Austria had really disturbed Elsa. Her nerves were shattered from what she had seen and experienced in Vienna and the possibility that she might have to return there. She spoke continuously to the Tobins about Hitler. She suffered from depression. On 27 October 1938, she booked a room at the Crescent Hotel. There she took a
gun from her handbag, and as she lay on the bed, she put it to her head and pulled the trigger, killing herself, aged 57. No one heard the shot. Around 8 o’clock, Berish Hofler went to his daughter’s house and was distressed that he didn’t find his wife. At 23:30, Margarete went to the Garda (Police) station and reported her mother missing. The body was found shortly after midnight. The Gardai (Irish Police) notified the family. In the early hours of Friday morning of the 28th. The Fire Brigade ambulance arrived and brought the body to the morgue at Barrington’s Hospital on Georges Quay. As it was the eve of the Jewish sabbath, the family were anxious to have the remains buried. Mr Nathaniel Fine made arrangements for the burial at Griffins Funeral Home on Lower Gerald Griffin Street. As the body was about to be
removed, the Gardai intervened and had the deceased returned to the morgue. After a post-mortem examination on the Saturday, permission for the burial was given again. On Sunday morning, 30 October, a Griffins’ motor hearse went to Barrington’s Hospital, collected the coffin and drove to the Jewish Cemetery in Kilmurry where, in the presence of Berisch Hofler, Margarete Kaitcer and her husband Gaskel and the last serving Jewish Rabbi of Limerick, Simon Gewurz, the remains of Elsa Reininger were laid to rest in an unmarked grave.

Elsa was just one of the thousands that were so overwhelmed by the evil they had witnessed, that they felt they could not continue to live. These are often forgotten Holocaust victims, because they are not registered as such.

sources

file:///C:/Users/Dirk/Downloads/Elsa_Reininger_A_Forgotten_Victim_of_Ado.pdf

https://www.geni.com/people/Simon-Gewurtz/6000000003823159033

Click to access ct046.pdf

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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.

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Walter Seifert-Adolf Hitler the 2nd.

The case of Walter Seifert is a disturbing one. It is also an indication on something that I have argued for a long time, the Denazification program after World War 2 did not work. It was merely a political bit of veneer.

For you who don’t know what the Denazification program was;Denazification (German: Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following World War 2.

It was attempted through a series of directives issued by the Allied Control Council, seated in Berlin, beginning in January 1946. “Denazification directives” identified specific people and groups and outlined judicial procedures and guidelines for handling them. Though all the occupying forces had agreed on the initiative, the methods used for denazification and the intensity with which they were applied differed between the occupation zones.

Although I have seen no records to show that Walter Seifert had been subjected to the program, it is sage to presume that he did. As a former sergeant with the Luftwaffe in the fact he joined the Germany security police at the end of 1945, one can conclude from this that he must have been a subject to the Denazification program.

On 23 August 1946 he was treated for a bronchial catarrh, and an examination by a specialist on 5 September diagnosed with tuberculosis in the right lung, resulting in his dismissal from the police on 30 September, as he was unfit for service. From then on Seifert attempted to enforce his claims for subsistence, feeling he was being treated unfairly by the government which he claimed was cheating him of his war pension.

He reportedly fell apart after his wife died of an embolism during premature birth on 11 February 1961. Holding the doctors responsible for the death of his wife he wrote a 120-page letter titled “Muttermord — Einzelschicksal und Analyse eines Systems” (Matricide – Individual fate and analysis of a system), and sent it to agencies, doctors and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Therein he tried to prove that the treatment of his wife’s embolism was done wrong, called society a criminal system and equated doctors with murderers, writing:

“The doctor is the greatest mass murderer of the poor in the history of mankind (…) What to do? Appeal to their ‘conscience’ – useless, whoever does something like that has no conscience. Does the aforementioned science count before any court? No, thus begins the vigilante justice, the terror of the medical society in the pluralistic chaos of criminality. But terror can only be extirpated with counter-terror, and whoever denies me the protection of the law forces the cudgel into my hand.”

While doctors said he had schizophrenia, they did not consider him violent.

However on June 11,1964, his 42nd birthday ,he entered a Catholic elementary school in Cologne, located at the Volkhovener Weg 209-211, with a homemade flamethrower and a long lance, reportedly yelling, “I am Adolf Hitler the Second!” He used the flamethrower to start fires in classrooms, stabbing victims with his lance. Killing eight pupils and two teachers, and wounding twenty-two others. When police arrived at the scene, he fled from the school compound and poisoned himself by taking cyanide.. He was taken to a hospital, where he died the same evening.

The victims:

Teachers; Gertrud Bollenrath, aged 62, Ursula Kuhr, aged 24.

None of the children died immediately. Some suffered for more then a week before they died.

Dorothea Binner, 9, died on 15 June, Renate Fühlen, 9, died on 19 June, Ingeborg Hahn, 9, died on 30 June, Ruth Hoffmann, 10, died on 20 June, Klara Kröger, 9, died on 16 June, Stephan Lischka, 9, died on 16 June, Karin Reinhold, 11, died on 20 June, Rosel Röhrig, 12, died on 18 June.

I know he may have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. But I think the fact that he had actively been a Nazi ,he was still indoctrinated with that ideology, and that ideology was not rooted out with the Denazification program, because it was successful on only very few Nazis.

Walter Seifert basically had a chip on his shoulder and suffered from this sense of entitlement that so many Nazis had.

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sources

https://amok.fandom.com/wiki/Walter_Seifert

https://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/seifert-walter.htm

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/May-June-08/On-this-Day–Walter-Seifert-Goes-on-Killing-Spree-in-Cologne–Germany.html

Happy Birthday Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh ( 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He was not commercially successful, and his suicide at 37 came after years of mental illness, depression and poverty.

On his birthday lets have a look at his lesser known works.

Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette

Still Life with Open Bible, Extinguished Candle and Novel

Drawbridge in Nieuw-Amsterdam.

Grietje Lea Philippus Cohen-van Bergen

Grietje Lea Philippus Cohen-van Bergen such a long name.

Although there is quite a lot of data about her , there is still very little known about her.

Born in Weesp, the Netherlands on 9 September 1884.

Daughter of Philippus Hartog van Bergen en Maria Levie de Vries‏.

Married to Salli Cohen‏‎ , son of Mozes Cohen en Reintje Rubens‏.

Married on 1 November 1906

Witnesses to the marriage ; Barend Cohen, 31 , trader , brother of the groom.

Hartog Philippus van Bergen,33 ,trader and Asser Philippus van Bergen,24, traveler . Brothers of the bride.

Gabriel Levie de Vries, 53, uncle of the bride.

Children

Mozes Cohen;Barend Cohen;Maria Cohen;Philip Cohen;Hartog Cohen‏‎ and Levie Cohen.

We also know that Grietje was treated at “Het Apeldoornsche Bosch” which was a Jewish psychiatric hospital in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands.

We know this because on June 1943 the assistant secretary of the hospital wrote a letter to Hartog Cohen, one of Grietje’s sons, confirming that his mother who had been in treatment at the hospital since 23 December 1924, had been put on transport on January 21,1943 to an unknown destination. She had been put on transport because the Hospital was cleared out.

All 1200 patients and 50 staff were transported to Auschwitz that day.

The last thing we know about Grietje is that she was murdered in Auschwitz on February 16,1943 aged 58.

Her son Hartog survived the war, her daughter Maria died a year after birth. The other 4 children all were murdered in Auschwitz and Sobibor. Her son Levie comitted suicide on September 30,1942.

Her Husband Salli, survived and died February 18,1975 aged 92.

Grietje Lea Philippus Cohen-van Bergen such a long name and yet such a short life.

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know a 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. Thanks 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

$2.00

Sources

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/218097/grietje-lea-philippus-cohen-van-bergen

http://www.maxvandam.info/humo-gen/family.php?id=F7325&main_person=I19616