the Netherlands
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The photograph above might appear strange for a Holocaust story, but I posted it for a good reason. It is a chemical plant called DSM. At the edge on the top of the photo, you can see a few apartment blocks where I grew up, in the town of Geleen in the Netherlands. The DSM…
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Catharina Brücker was the eldest child of Romanian tailor Mozes Brücker (1892–1944) and the Dutch Rossetta Eijl (1896–1944). Her father made women’s clothing for major fashion houses in Rotterdam and owned several shops in the city. From age six until she was twenty, Catharina attended a dance school where she learned ballet, tap dance, and…
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Most of my life has been occupied with one question: “Why did my Grandfather die?” As far as I am aware and as far as I was told by my family, he was executed by the German occupiers during World War II. It has only been recently I actually found out the actual date he…
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On the morning of May 10, 1940, the Netherlands awoke to the thunder of German bombers overhead and the sound of artillery fire along its borders. After months of tense neutrality, the small, strategically located country found itself swept into the maelstrom of World War II. The invasion of the Netherlands marked a critical moment…
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Moffenmeid is a designation for women who had relationships with German soldiers during the occupation of the Netherlands during World War II, or there was suspicion of their doing so. The word mof is a swear word for German—the English equivalent is Kraut. The women in question were sometimes pro-German or prostitutes, but often, they…
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Theodoor van Gogh Although Theodoor van Gogh was not an artist himself, he was the great-nephew of one of the most renowned painters in history—Vincent van Gogh. Theodoor, known as Theo, was born in Amsterdam and was the uncle of filmmaker, columnist, and public intellectual Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004. In 1941,…
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On 4 May 1945, the German Admiral Von Friedeburg at Lüneburg surrendered to British Field Marshal Montgomery on behalf of the German troops in Northwest Germany, the Netherlands, Schleswig-Holstein, and Denmark. On 5 May, Canadian General Charles Foulkes summoned the German Supreme Commander Johannes Blaskowitz to Hotel De Wereld in Wageningen to discuss the effect…
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Voor de Nederlandse slachtoffers van de Tweede Wereldoorlog Beneath the bells that softly toll,In hush of dusk, we bare our soul.Two minutes still, the world stands shy,As tears fall slow from silent sky. We speak no names — yet all are near,The brave, the lost, the ones held dear.From city square to windswept dune,Their memory…
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On April 29, 1942, the Nazis announced a new humiliation for Jewish Dutch citizens. Starting on May 3, they were required to wear an identifying mark: a six-pointed yellow Star of David with the word “Jew” in the center. This star made it possible to recognize Jews in public. The German occupiers intended this to…
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(Update from the November 2016 blog) One aspect of history I find particularly difficult to grasp is the collaboration of some Jews with the Nazis. On the one hand, I understand that self-preservation is a powerful human instinct—survival at any cost can drive people to make unimaginable choices. Yet, conversely, it’s hard to reconcile how…
History of Sorts 