In 1943, 19 trains left Westerbork for Sobibor. Over 34.000 men, women, and children from The Netherlands made this journey. Not knowing where they would go, thinking they would be resettled. Most of these people were all murdered within a five months of arriving in Sobibor. Only 18 people out of all these Dutch transports to Sobibor survived the war.
On March 2, 1943, the first train with 1105 people departed from Westerbork camp to Sobibor. After a journey of three days, the train arrived on March 5.
The last train that left Westerbork for Sobibor left Westerbork on Tuesday, July 20, 1943. This was transport 19. In the cattle cars, there were 2209 men, women, and children. No survivors.
I am not able to tell the stories of all 34,000 victims, but I can tell the story of a few of them.
Catherina Veffer-Appelboom arrived in Westerbork on 23 February 1943 and stayed in barrack 55. The higher barracks served as transit barracks during this period. Catherina was one of those on the first transport of March 2, 1943. The journey took 3 days she was murdered on March 5th in Sobibor. She was born in Amsterdam, on September 18, 1868. She was aged 74 when she was murdered,
Her son Jonas would follow along with his wife and their youngest daughter: the three of them were part of the children’s transport from Vught. They were murdered in Sobibor on 11 June. Catherina’s older sister, Rebecca, had already arrived in Westerbork on 25 January 1943 and was staying in barrack 84. Their brother Gerrit arrived in Westerbork two days after Catherina was deported to Sobibor. A week later, together with his sister Rebecca, they were put on a transport to Sobibor, where they were murdered on March 13, 1943.
The 17th train that left for Sobibor left on Tuesday, July 6 from Westerbork. Aboard there were 2417 men, women, and children. They were all murdered upon arrival in Sobibor on Friday, July 9.
One of them was 6 years old Lea Judith de la Penha from Amsterdam.
Lea Judith de la Penha was the daughter of David de la Penha (Amsterdam, 12 August 1909) and Judith Rodrigues Parreira (Amsterdam, 27 September 1903). The family lived at Graaf Florisstraat 21 until 11 May 1943 and then until 6 July 1943 at Graaf Florisstraat 5-1.
Lea’s Father, David, was a wall paperer and insurance agent by profession, and, according to the personal card of the city archives, also a stone printer. Her Mother, Judith, was a tailor.
Lea’s Father and mother were married in Amsterdam on August 8, 1934. In 1936 David and Judith had their first child, who was either stillborn or died soon after birth on April 5, 1936. This child was buried on April 6 at Beth Haim in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel.
Their daughter Lea was born on May 11, 1937.
David, Judith, and Lea were arrested in 1943 and were deported from Westerbork to Sobibor on July 6th. There were 2,417 people on this transport. On arrival on July 9, 1943, all people from this transport were murdered almost immediately.
I was going to write about a young boy called Jonas van Oosten. He was murdered in Auschwitz on January 16,1943, aged 16.
When he was two years of age he won a kite competition. The kite was much bigger then himself.
He proudly posed with his kite for a photograph, in front of a house designed by his uncle. He won the kite competition on Queen’s day in 1928, which was the national celebration of Queen Wilhelmina’s birthday.
Jonas and his kite mad it into the local news paper in Assen, the Netherlands.
The caption said “The biggest kite with the smallest kite flyer”
A young proud boy.
Later on Jonas became a member of the Achilles football association in Assen. His name appears with those of seven other Jewish club members killed during World War II on a monument at the sports complex of this association on the Marsdijk.
14 years after the picture was taken, Jonas was murdered along with the rest his family. As I said at the start I was only going to do a piece on Jonas, because that picture of a boy with a kite, could have been a picture of me, or of my sons. But then I saw pictures of the whole van Oosten family, the parents and three sons. The other 2 boys were even younger then Jonas.
Father Machiel, Mother Johanna, youngest brother Maurits Henk and the other brother Israël Berty aka Iwan.. The family owned a furniture and bedding shop
called the “Walvisch” ,Whale.
There was also an uncle called Maurits.
In July 1942 the mayor of Assen requested that Maurits van Oosten, who lived at 10 Gedempte Singel in Assen, be located, detained and brought to trial. Following the hiding of the Machiel van Oosten family, his wife Johanna van Oosten-Jakobs and the children Jonas, Israel and Maurits Henk van Oosten.
Maurits Henk van Oosten. Born in Assen, on 7 January 1933.Murdered in Auschwitz, 24 September 1943He reached the age of 10 years.
Maurits van Oosten was the youngest son of Machiel van Oosten and Johanna van Oosten-Jakobs. Maurits was seven years old when the war started. He was in primary school. In September 1941 it was forbidden for Jewish children to go to regular schools any longer. From September 1941 there is a Jewish primary school in Assen, where Maurits probably was a student. The school existed until 31 August 1942. From May 1942 Maurits was also obliged to wear a yellow star on his clothing. Maurits was called ‘Maunie’ by his family. The Nazis had confiscated his parents’ shop and house. Shortly afterwards, the Van Oosten family went into hiding on a small island in the Frisian lakes. There they were discovered and arrested. Maurits father, his uncle and his eldest brother Jonnie were sent to camp Amersfoort. His mother, his brother Iwan and himself were sent to camp Westerbork.
Israel Berty van Oosten aka Iwan was born on December 27, 1927 in Assen.
He was murdered in Auschwitz, on 24 September 1943.He reached the age of 15 years.
Iwan was a student at the public school, but could no longer go there because of the measures against Jews after the summer of 1941. From September 1, 1941, Iwan went to the Jewish school. Around June 1942, the family was told to get out of the store and clear everything. At first they were temporarily housed by other Jewish families, until a barn became available behind Boele Geerts’ café that had been used as a horse stable. After a cleaning and major clean-up, the family had temporary accommodation there. But they didn’t stay long in that shed.
With the help of the café owner Boele Geerts, the family was transported to a hiding place in Hindelopen. From the police report:
Saturday, July 18, 1942. 12 noon. Commissioned by Mr. H. I. v. P., an investigation was launched into the absence of the family of M. van Oosten, Gedempte Singel 10. An investigation showed that the family of Van Oosten approx. 10 days ago moved into a barn space, behind the café Boele Geerts on the Groningerstraat, as the plot Gedempte Singel 10 had to be cleared. Wednesday evening July 15th. the family was still seen in Assen, but not anymore. The family consists of:
Machiel van Oosten born April 22, 1899 in Assen, Ned. Jew.
His wife, Johanna Jakobs, born 27 May 1902 in Emmen, Ned. Jewess.
Jonas van Oosten, born 9 August 1926 in Assen.
Israel Berty van Oosten, born December 27, 1927 in Assen.
Maurits Henk van Oosten, born January 7, 1933. as well as the live-in brother 6. Maurits van Oosten born 26 November 1901 in Assen, Ned. Jew.
Machiel and Maurits should have reported to the Jewish labor camp near Orvelte on Sunday 19 July 1942 along with other Jewish men from Assen. Behind their names on the departing list was: missing. On September 10, 1942, a guard in Sneek reported that the van Oosten family had been arrested in De Hel-It Heidenskip. They were accidentally discovered by Germans looking for an English channel. The family was separated. Johanna ended up with Iwan and younger brother Maurits in Westerbork transit camp on 25 September 1942. And Machiel, Uncle Maurits and Iwan’s older brother Jonny went to camp Amersfoort. On September 21, 1943, after almost a year in the camp, Iwan and his brother Maurits were deported with their mother to Auschwitz. When they got there, they were immediately killed.
Jonas was called ‘Jonnie’ by his family. The Nazis had confiscated his parents’ shop and house. Shortly afterwards, the Van Oosten family went into hiding on a small island in the Frisian lakes. There they were discovered and arrested. Jonnie, his father and his uncle were sent to camp Amersfoort. His mother, his brother Iwan and brother Maurits were sent to camp Westerbork.
In camp Amersfoort, Jewish prisoners were treated very badly. The food was poor and the prisoners were mistreated. In letters from camp Westerbork, Jonnie’s mother writes about her concerns about her husband, brother-in-law and children: “The people here are full of hope and cheerful. I also think by winter the end (of the war) but I’m afraid we’re still going. My poor little boys. I want to save them so badly. And here waiting for my trio (husband, brother-in-law and son). I occasionally hope they are still alive. It’s like going crazy in this hell and then alone. Nobody knows how good it has been, and how good we had it those 18 years and that it’s gone now, that’s impossible. And my Jonneman who is now almost 17 years old. What that poor child suffers if he is still alive. You don’t have to think about that. It is said that Mau (Jonnie’s father) and Jonnie passed through Oberhauzen Essen about 20 November with 80 other Jews. And Mie (his uncle) about December 19 the same direction. Yesterday I spoke to an Aryan who was with him in Amersfoort. Mie has also said that he will do his best to make it through to the end and he thought Jonnie was a sweet good kid. He was the youngest there, but Amersfoort has been very bad.”
Johanna van Oosten-Jakobs. Born in Emmen, on 27 May 1902 . Murdered in Auschwitz, 24 September 1943. Reached the age of 41 years.
She wrote a few letters while in the camp. This one is about the worries she had about her son Maurits aka Maunie:
“What a sick boy he was, He’s like an old man and so nervous. Maunie is looking forward to tonight. He hasn’t eaten anything in four days and now Aunt Leen has promised to cook him potatoes. She will bring them tonight. That’s something he’s really looking forward to.”
In another letter she wrote:
“The people here are full of hope and cheerfulness. I also think by winter the end (of the war) but I’m afraid we’re still going. My poor little boys. I want to save them so badly. And here waiting for my trio (husband, brother-in-law and son). I occasionally hope they are still alive. It’s like going crazy in this hell and then alone.
Machiel van Oosten was the son of Jonas van Oosten and Gonda Godschalk. He had two brothers and a sister. Machiel was known as Mie. Machiel ran the furniture shop De Walvisch (which opened in 1896) with his father Jonas van Oosten and his brother Maurits. In addition to selling home furnishings, the firm arranged moves. The firm’s large orange lorry was the first transport vehicle in Assen. The extensive advertising included the song ‘De Groote Walvischtrein’, of which the words to the first of the three stanzas were:
If you want to move, fear you need not feign:
Van Oosten has a big whale train,
to bring your things without a penny of pain”
Machiel was born in Assen, on 22 April 1899.He was murdered in Auschwitz, 11 January 1943.
Everyone in the van Oosten family, including grandparents, uncles and aunts were murdered.
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.
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People nowadays often complain when a train is running late, me included by the way. However recently I have changed my way of thinking about that.
Throughout Europe, during World War 2 the railways were used to accommodate an industrialized scale of murder. This could only be done if the trains ran on time. The picture at the start of the blog is of a train at Westerbork, which was operated by the NS,Nederlandsche Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways).
Nearly 107,000 people were deported from camp Westerbork with 97 transports. On 15 July 1942 the first transport left for Auschwitz-Birkenau. From March 2, 1943 to November 16, 1943 there was a weekly schedule: every Tuesday a train with a thousand and sometimes more than three thousand people left. The last transport left on September 13, 1944.
The transport were regular as clock work.
In June 2019 the Dutch railway has accepted a recommendation that it pay up to €50m to relatives of thousands of people it transported to Nazi death camps during the second world war. That figure is really like a drop in the ocean.
It is just a photo of a soldier with his family. One could easily dismiss this photograph as someone’s memory. A father who loved to smoke, a mother all dressed up and two well-dressed children—a boy and a girl.
This photo could have easily been a picture of my grandfather with his family. Like the man in the picture, my grandfather had something in common. The man pictured is Philip Silbernberg, and it was 1939. The year the Dutch army was mobilized for fear of war. My grandfather was sent his notification to report that year, as well.
War did come to the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 as German troops invaded the Netherlands. The fighting continued for four days, and on 14 May, the Dutch army capitulated.
In a way, Philip and my grandfather may have been relieved that the fighting only lasted four days. They realised things would change. The Germans set up a new government, a Nazi regime composed of German and Dutch members. But in general, things would not change all that much, and for a short time, that held true.
On 12 May 1942, there was a notification in the newspaper, Het dagblad van het Zuiden!, the daily newspaper of the south, that all men who served in the Dutch army on 10 May 1940, the day the Germans invaded the Netherlands, and who were 55 or younger, had to report to the occupying authorities by 15 May 1942. It had been the second notification.
On that same day, 12 May, my grandfather died. For years, I thought he was executed, but now I believe there is a possibility he committed suicide.
I do not know if Philip Silbernberg saw that notification, but he probably did because he lived in the same area as my grandfather, only a short cycle distance away. Philip’s outcome was completely different.
Philip was born in Ophoven-Sittard. His father owned a shop in draperies and colonial goods there since 1890 and later it was known for men’s fashions. His father died in 1934. Philip and his brother Les took over the family business in 1929.
In August 1929, Philip married Jenetta (Jettie) van der Stam from Rotterdam. They settled in Sittard, where their daughter Roosje was born in 1930, and their son, Herman, was born in 1934. Les married in 1937 and started his own shop in Geleen, my hometown, while Philip continued the family business.
Mother Rosalie, affectionately called den Engel, (The Angel), moved in 1939 with daughter Else and her family to Nieuwer-Amstel near Amsterdam. She passed away in November 1941.
In the spring of 1939, Rosalie’s brother Albert and his wife Hedwig Schwarz-Wihl emigrated from Dortmund to the Netherlands. Upon their arrival, they moved in with Philip’s family.
When the Nazis forced the Jews to wear the yellow star, Philip purposely went to the city photographer, Wulms in Sittard, to be photographed in his suit with the Star of David. He told his son, Herman, “Boy…you should be proud of it.”
In August 1942, the Silbernbergs escaped the first major deportation round in Limburg because Philip had recently registered as an employee of the Jewish Council. Nevertheless, Philip and Jettie decided to have their children go into hiding in Heerlen, and in October, they went into hiding. Philip’s brother in Geleen, and his sisters in Amsterdam and Nieuwer-Amstel, also went into hiding with their families.
The mayor of Sittard issued an arrest warrant for Philip and his wife to have them detained for trial. There was also a request for the location of the two Silbernbergs children. The charge— they changed their residence on 20 October 1942 without having the required authorization. This description referred to Jews who had gone into hiding.
Betrayed when hiding in Heerlen on 6 March 1944, they were arrested and deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz on 23 March. The exact date their murdered is not known. The camp wrote it as 31 August 1944.
The two children had escaped to Belgium and were in hiding until the end of the war. After the war, they were taken care of by Nathan and Else Wijnperle-Silbernberg.
The more I do research on the victims, the more I realise, it could have easily been my family. Sittard used to be the neighbouring town of my hometown Geleen, but in 2001 the two towns merged together and are now known as the city of Sittard-Geleen.
A few weeks ago, a grandson of Philip sent me a few more pictures: Philip and Jenetta’s honeymoon in Bruxelles. Philip’s brother Les (Isidore) with his wife, Greta and the children of Philip and Jenetta—Herman and Roos. (This photo, we think, was taken in Liège at the end of the war.)
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.
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Before I go into the story of Koenraad , I want to mention someone else. The 2 people are connected by the date January 29,1942. Clazina van Leeuwen-Menassen died on this date, she was a Jewish lady but she was spared the horrors of the camps, she died at the ripe old age of 100.
Koenraad was born on January 29,1942.
He was the second child of Florence Gezang-Goudeket and Maurits Gezang . The couple had had another son, Edward . At the time of Koentje’s birth, the family lived in The Hague, the Netherlands.
After a failed attempt to escape to Switzerland in August 1942, the Gezang couple decided to go into hiding separately from each other. Koentje was left in early October with Leo van Dis in Overveen. A Dutch teacher at the Second HBS in Haarlem, he was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church and involved in resistance work within his religious community. He promised to find a reliable foster home for the child. This was a tried and tested method of the resistance to save Jewish babies: a baby was placed on the doorstep of a trustworthy family (usually by agreement), who then alerted the police and registered the baby with the registry office. Then the family took care of the child and either adopted it, or it went to an orphanage. In this way the child was no longer registered as Jewish and could potentially survive the war or deportation.
On October 16 at 8.45 pm Koenraad was put as a foundling on the doorstep of the Van de Bunt family at Duinwijckweg 1 in Bloemendaal. Henk van de Bunt, father of the family, reported his discovery by telephone to police sergeant Henk Bikkel, after which an investigation was started into the origin of the child. By means of a notification in the Haarlemsche Courant of 20 October, the public was asked for information by the police.
The notification says that the boy was dressed in a pink jacket and a pink hat. In those days baby boys would wear pink and baby girls would wear blue.
National newspapers took over this report a day later. On October 26, Van de Bunt filed a declaration with the registry office of the municipality of Bloemendaal. The foundling was given the first name Remi, after the main character from the book “Alone in the world” by Hector Malot ; the surname Van Duinwijck refers to the location of the child. His age was estimated at about eight months. ‘Remi’ was lovingly welcomed into the family of Henk van de Bunt, his wife Jo and their children.
Four days later, the couple and Koenraad had to report to the head office of the Sicherheitsdienst in Amsterdam. The SD took the position that Koentje(short voor Koenraad) was not allowed to stay with his foster parents, because he was a Jewish child. Jo van de Bunt’s objection that this was not certain because the child had not been circumcised, was to no avail. The couple had to return home without Koentje.
In order to determine whether Koentje was actually Jewish, the doctor and alderman of Public Health Johan Lodewijk Strakwas ordered to physically examine the boy. He reported to the Plantage Middenlaan in the first week of 1943. On January 8, 1943, Strak, a member of the NSB and an SS member, reported that Koentje had not been circumcised, but could be called Jewish on the basis of external characteristics.
The boy was transferred by order of the Nazis to the nursery at Plantage Middenlaan 31, opposite the Hollandsche Schouwburg in Amsterdam.
The little boy stole the hearts of the nursery staff and of the German officers, who came to visit him regularly. All the attention the boy received made it impossible to send him into hiding.
In order to determine whether Koentje was actually Jewish, the doctor and alderman of Public Health Johan Lodewijk Strak was ordered to physically examine the boy. He reported to the Plantage Middenlaan in the first week of 1943. On January 8, 1943, Strak, a member of the NSB and an SS member, reported that Koentje had not been circumcised, but could be called Jewish on the basis of ‘physical attributes’. How he determined that is a puzzle to me. It is a myth that there are any specific Jewish ‘physical attributes’ ,then again the whole blonde blue eyed Aryan notion was a myth too. The original Aryans were from Indo-Iranian origin.
After a stay of more than five months in the nursery , Koentje was transferred to Camp Westerbork, where he arrived on 15 April 1943.
On May 18, 1943, the 12th transport departed from Westerbork for Sobibór. There were 2,511 adults and children on board the train. One of them was Remi van Duinwijck, his real name ,Koenraad Huib Gezang, was not yet known at the time. Koenraad was murdered on May 21,1943, age 1.
In 2002, the real name of Remi van Duinwijck finally was released as Koenraad Huib Gezang .
Koentje’s mother Florence went into hiding in October 1942, together with her parents and sister Helena. In December they were discovered, arrested by the Gestapo and transported to Westerbork. From there they were transported, together with the parents of her Husband, Maurits Gezang, to Sobibór on 6 April 1943, where they were all murdered three days later. Koenraad’s dad and brother, Maurits and Eddy, managed to move to Paris , where they lived under the name Wiedeman. Both survived the war. Maurits remarried and died in 1983. Eddy Gezang emigrated to Sweden in the early 1950s. After he stopped working in 1995, he investigated what had happened to his brother during the war. Initially he cherished the hope that Koentje was still alive, possibly under another name. Gradually he found out that the photos his father once gave him of his brother showed the same boy who was known as the foundling Remi from the nursery. In 2002 he resigned himself to the fact that Koentje alias Remi had been murdered in Poland. Eddy passed away in 2014.
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.
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This is the aspect of the Holocaust I struggle most with. How can anyone look at this child and perceive him to be a threat to the nation. How can they look at his face and decide that he needs to be killed immediately.
Sjelomo Hamburger would have celebrated his 80th birthday today. But he only reached the age of 2.
Sjelomo Hamburger was the son of Samuel Hamburger and Marianne van Straten.
Samuel and Marianne , lived at Fahrenheitstraat 4 in Amersfoort. They were married 25 August 1939 in Amersfoort,the Netherlands, and their son Sjelomo was born there on 22 January 1942.
A few months after the birth of their son , Samuel and Marianne decided to go into hiding with Sjelomo, to escape the persecution by the Nazis.
During a search for prohibited motion pictures, an Amersfoort police officer discovered two-year old Sjelomo Hamburger in an attic room on the Schimmelpenninckstraat in Amersfoort on 8 June 1944.
I am not sure if his parents were with him. But this is where Sjelomo Hamburger had been hiding there since August 1942. He was deported to Auschwitz via Westerbork on September 3, 1944. There were in total 783 people on that transport, 7776 Jewish, 36 resistance fighters, and 17 were classified as citizen. Two were under the age of 12, 2 year old Sjelomo was one of them.
Concentration camp Vught, also known as concentration camp Herzogenbusch , was the only purpose built concentration camp in the Netherland. The other 2 major camps, Westerbork and Amersfoort, were already built before the war as a refugee center and army barracks.
The construction of Camp Vught began in May 1942. The camp consisted of 36 living and 23 working barracks. It was surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence with watchtowers were placed roughly every 160 feet around the perimeter. The SS lived outside the camp. situated outside the camp.
On the night of 15th/ 16th January 1944 , 74 female prisoners were detained in a cell after they protested against the interment of a fellow prisoner. This was done under the authority of camp commander Adam Grünewald
The room with the surface of 9 m² had a poor ventilation system, and because of that ten women died of suffocation during the 14 hours of imprisonment. The news of this crime quickly got outside the camp and was extensively reported by the Dutch illegal press. This caused a problem to the Nazi leadership in the Netherlands, who were trying to limit such violent incidents in the camp in order not to fuel the resistance in the Netherlands.
Electronics company Philips had a factory within the compound of the camp. It employed about 1200 people, who received a better treatment then other prisoners.
Adam Grünewald was subsequently arrested for the “bunker tragedy” and tried by an SS court in February which gave him credit for his years of service and his contention that he “didn’t wish for the death of ten women.” He was convicted for their death but sentenced to only three and a half years imprisonment.
On several sites this is referred to as the “bunker tragedy” . I don’t see it as a tragedy, to me this was cold blooded murder. They only redeeming factor is that only 10 women died.
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.
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At first glance when you look at the picture it doesn’t appear to be extraordinary. There is an officer clearly giving a speech. There are a few Christmas trees at the back so it appears to be some sort of Christmas do.
The officer is Albert Konrad Gemmeker he was a German SS-Obersturmführer and camp commandant of the Westerbork transit camp.
He was considered the friendly face of Nazi evil. Known as a decent commander, who insisted that he never knew what happened to the Jews in camps such as Auschwitz. Yet during his reign at the Dutch camp, around 80,000 Jewish people were deported to Auschwitz.
On 19 December 1942 Gemmeker threw a Christmas party, or rather a Julfest (Yule feast).
The venue for his party was Westerbork. According to some survivors, a line of shiny new cars had pulled up to the camp, with several high-ranking SS officers and their mistresses or prostitutes, either way not their wives. Officers like Aus der Funten and photographer Breslau, Untersturmführer Hassel, who was there with his wife.
The big hall in Westerbork was filled with SS staff celebrating. What makes it even more disturbing is that their food was cooked and served by some of those 80,000 Gemmeker would later send to Auschwitz, to be murdered.
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.
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I have written several blogs on Westerbork. The reasons I highlight Westerbork are:
It was the place where most Dutch Jewish and Jewish Refugees passed through before being sent to extermination camps.
It had initially been set up as a refugee centre for Jews prior to the war.
Although the death toll was much lower in Westerbork than in other camps, it was also one of the most sinister camps.
It is the sinister aspect I want to explore here. The biggest crime committed in Westerbork was it gave those imprisoned— hope, or rather, false hope. It was a distraction from their awaited fate.
The Dutch government established a camp at Westerbork in 1939 to intern Jewish refugees, the majority from Germany. The first refugees arrived in Westerbork in October of that year. In April 1940, there were approximately 750 Jewish refugees housed in the camp. Some were German Jews who had been passengers on the MS St. Louis.
The photograph above is of the camp’s football team. Amidst all the killing, torture, deportations and other horrors in Camp Westerbork, they actually found time to set up a football competition.
Some prisoners were well-known European players or players from major European teams.
Westerbork had facilities like a hospital, an orphanage with a playground, and a football competition that fell into that category. The prisoners got hope and a sense of normality out of this.
How did the idea of a football competition come from? In 1943, a small group of prisoners went from Westerbork to Amsterdam—where they had to work in a factory. Whilst on the train from Assen to Amsterdam, they read a paper, De Telegraaf, a widespread Dutch Newspaper. The newspaper had an article that the national football competition was still going. When reading this news, one of the group members got angry; they were playing without him! How could this be?
Within that group that travelled to Amsterdam were multiple footballers, such as Ignatz Feldmann, a famous professional footballer from Austria in the 1920s and the 1930s.
Feldman was one of the best defenders at that time. He was well-known—not only in Austria but also in The Netherlands—and had a certain status within Camp Westerbork and the Jewish community. During that train journey from Assen to Amsterdam, he came up with the idea of starting a football competition at the camp. The camp commandant allowed it.
It was quite a professional-looking competition. With matches being played every week.
Eddy Hamel was an American Jew who played for AFC Ajax, Amsterdam. Ernst Alexander was a Jewish player for FC Schalke 04, and Árpád Weisz was a Hungarian Olympic football player and manager. He was managing FC Dordrecht in the Netherlands when the war broke out. They all were murdered in Auschwitz.
Football was not the only thing that distracted the prisoners from their fate. There were factories, music, and playgrounds, It was nearly like an ordinary town.
Camp Westerbork also had a school, orchestra, hairdresser, and even restaurants designed by SS officials to give inmates a false sense of hope for survival and to aid in avoiding problems during transportation.
The camp administration was headed by a German commandant. Westerbork had three commandants, all of whom were SS officers: Erich Deppner (July 1942–September 1942); Josef Hugo Dischner (September–October 1942); and Albert Konrad Gemmeker (October 1942–April 1945). German SS men and a rotating group of Dutch civilian and military police guarded the camp. In addition to the German and Dutch personnel, a Jewish police force, called the Ordedienst or the OD, kept order in the camp.
Below is a film that shows what life in Westerbork was like. It was recently discovered and restored. It is a long film—but it is well worth the watch.
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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 not wanted” or “Jews not desired” . Above the sign there is another one, it gives us the name of the town ‘de Bilt’ . This is not just any town in the Netherlands, it is one of the most affluent towns in the country, it has been for centuries. It was the birthplace of Joan Gideon Loten, a prominent member of the Dutch East India Company .It was also the birthplace of Johan Beyen a politician, who helped create the European Economic Community. During World War II, he was, in addition to his position at Unilever, financial advisor to the Dutch government in exile in London. In 1944, he played an important role during the Bretton Woods conference where the foundations were laid for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. From 1946, he was the Dutch representative in the board of the World Bank and from 1948 also in that of the IMF.
The town is also where one of America’s wealthiest families originated from , the Vanderbilt family.
So a very influential town. No one in the town had to fear any hardships or job losses caused by Jews, yet this was one the lies spread by the Nazis.
The hateful rhetoric was based on nothing. Of course the sign, as many other signs, were put up on order by the Nazis, but there was little or no resistance by the population to put up them up.
The Holocaust didn’t happen overnight it was a gradual process.
De Bilt is and was also the home of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) since 1854. One of the institutes employees was Kittie Koperberg.
Kitty was fired from her job at the KNMI on November 21,1940 because she was Jewish. Even if she hadn’t been fired it was made very clear that she was no longer welcome in De Bilt. Like so many other Jews, Kittie was sent to Westerbork from there she was put on a transport to Sobibor on May 11,1943. When she arrived in Sobibor on the 14th of May she was murdered.
It is easy for me to judge in retrospect, however I don’t feel like it is a judgement but a critical analysis of the history of a dark era of the country I was born in. If we can’t be critical about our past we can never be critical about the present or the future. We will not learn from the mistakes that were made.
I know some people will jump on this blog to criticize the Dutch. But this will more then likely be done by people who live in one of the countries, that are currently white washing their mistakes, actively revising the history and distort it to suit their current narrative.
The hate against the Jews didn’t only exist in Germany but all over Europe.
The millions of victims of the Holocaust, and those who survived deserve better then that.
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.
History of Sorts 
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