the Netherlands
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I have written quite extensively about the failure of the Dutch to protect their Jewish neighbors and even resist the Nazi occupiers in general. However, on February 24, 1941, the Dutch communist party called for a nationwide strike to protest against the treatment of Jews as well as the forced labor in Germany. The Communist…
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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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At their annual rally held in Nuremberg on September 15, 1935 Nazi party leaders announced, after the Reichstag had adopted them, new laws that institutionalized many of the racial theories underpinning Nazi ideology. The so-called Nuremberg Laws, signed by Hitler and several other Nazi officials, were the cornerstone of the legalized persecution of Jews in…
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The picture above is an arrest card of Meijer Barmhartigheid. He was one of the 389 young Jewish man who were arrested during raid in Amsterdam on February 22 and 23 ,1941. Of those 389 only 2 survived the Holocaust. 100 of them were murdered in the Hartheim clinic, which was also the clinic used…
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I was reminiscing on TV shows I watched as a kid in the Netherlands. One of my favourite shows was a series called “Q&Q”. It was about 2 teenage detectives. The boys named Aristides Quarles and Wilbur Quant accidentally snap a photo of a dead body in the woods. After finding the place where the…
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Aron would have been 81 today, but he didn’t even get to the age of 2. He was born in Amsterdam on September 8, 1941. He was murdered in Sobibor March 26,1943. The fact that he was murdered at such a young age is not even the saddest part of his story. There was actually…
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I wish I could say I am remembering Sjakie Degen for his breakthrough work in science. I wish I could say I am remembering Sjakie Degen for a great book he wrote. I wish I could say I am remembering Sjakie Degen for a great painting he painted. I wish I could say that Sjakie…
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I have written about Westerbork before, but today I want to address the paradox and the misconception of the camp. Camp Westerbork was a Nazi transit camp in Drenthe province, northeastern Netherlands, during World War II. It was used as a staging location for sending Jews to concentration camps elsewhere, mainly Auschwitz and Sobibor. The…
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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…
History of Sorts 