When I was younger, in my late teens, one of my uncles took his own life. I was devastated, not just because I was very fond of my uncle but because I never faced a situation like that. I didn’t know if there was anything I could do. Also, the fact that I had the same first name as my uncle didn’t help the situation. A few people thought it was me who committed suicide.
At the time, I thought it was a very selfish act. Now that I am older, I know I was wrong in thinking that. I now know it was an act of desperation.
It was the same desperation that Emma Marie Zeehandelaar felt (although she had even greater despair than my uncle). On 16 May 1940, she decided to end the lives of her two sons—Robert Willem Swart age 6 (in the above photograph) and Johannes Frans Age Swart, age 7. In her note, she wrote, “The Germans are here and all of us know no other solution than to put an end to it. Sometimes it’s harder to live than to die.”
Emma was not alone in that decision. Shortly after the German invasion of the Netherlands, there was a wave of suicides. In the first month of the war, hundreds of people, mainly Jewish, decided not to wait for the future under German rule and took their own lives. Some did this alone, others with their partner or family. The number of suicides in the first month of the war was five times higher than the May average in other years. Even after that, Jews who saw no way out of deportation—committed suicide.
Not all of these deaths would have been included in the number of Holocaust deaths.
In the late 1930s, many German Jews tried to flee persecution in Nazi Germany. The Netherlands allowed a few to enter their borders. Jews in the Netherlands were committed to helping these refugees cross the border and arranged shelter. One of them was the Karel Nihom from Winterswijk. Not only did Karel help Jewish refugees, but he was also engaged in espionage for the British intelligence service. The German invasion put him in a precarious situation.
After Kristallnacht, many Jews tried to escape from Nazi Germany. In response, European countries, for the most part, closed their borders. The Jewish refugees then attempted to cross the border illegally. They bribed German border customs officers allowing some into the Netherlands. When they were caught, the Dutch government would ruthlessly send them back. Karel had good contacts with the Marechaussee and the Dutch Border Police, which helped the refugees cross the border without the risk of being sent back.
The refugees were helped in the Netherlands by the Committee for Special Jewish Interests. The Committee for Jewish Refugees subsection, of which Karel was a part, received them. Funding for this work came from the Jewish community in the Netherlands. They paid for the reception of the refugees and the construction of Refugee Camp Westerbork in 1939.
Karel Nihom was not only concerned with helping Jewish refugees. He also worked for British Intelligence. The German government was aware and pressured the Dutch government to thwart Karel. The Dutch government conceded to guarantee neutrality. Karel was arrested in early October 1939. He was forced to move and live at least thirty kilometres from the border. Karel moved to Scheveningen, and his family followed in April 1940.
After the German invasion, Karel panicked. He was on the radar of the German intelligence service. The panic was justified because Karel was on the German list of Dutch people to be arrested. Therefore, he knew he would be among one of the first arrests after the capitulation of the Netherlands. To cover his tracks as much as possible, he burned a lot of documents at home on May 14. That night Karel went to the harbour to look for a ship to take him to England. This did not work. In the morning, Karel took his life by hanging.
His wife and sons went into hiding and survived the war.
In the May days of 1940, 388 suicides were committed, of which 201 were by Jews. Later, many Jews took their own lives.
On 10 May 1940, the Netherlands was attacked by Germany. After a four-day battle and the bombardment of Rotterdam, the capitulation was signed on 15 May. The short but fierce battle cost many lives and caused a lot of damage.
It triggered a wave of suicides during and after the German invasion.During the first month of the war, hundreds of mainly Jewish people decided not to wait for the future under German rule and took their own lives. Some did so alone, others with their partner or family. The number of suicides in the first month of the war was five times higher than the May average in other years. Even afterwards, Jews who saw no way out of deportation took their own lives.
New data was published in 2001 about the size of the group of Dutch Jews who took their own lives. According to newly recovered data from the Central Bureau of Statistics for the period 1940–1943, this concerned approximately 257 (1940), 36 (1941), 248 (1942) and 169 (1943) persons. It was the highest percentage recorded in May 1940.
Here is the story of one family who committed that irreversible desperate act. What makes it so poignant is that it wasn’t an act of evil or hate but an act of love.
Ben Stranders, a friend of the Judels family, wrote a letter in memory of the family, who decided to take their lives on 15 May 1940.
“At seven o’clock, I said goodbye to David, Louis, Mientje and the children Mia and Bert. A few minutes later, on my return home, I heard that the Netherlands capitulated! We now have nothing more to decide, or at least not to face the question that occupied us only an hour ago. However, Louis and Mientje had other decisions in mind. They believed they owed this to their children.
In the morning, Annie, my father’s sister, saw from the house you once occupied—four stretchers carried down by the G.G.D. (public health service). As it turned out—only a very small chance of salvation. The following Friday, Leo, Bram Monnikendam, Gerrit, and I think also Catharine and Saar went to Westerveld. And we saw four coffins sink into the cellars of the Crematorium.
I will never forget the small box in white with Bert in it. He preceded many little children, fortunately without feeling the suffering to which they would first be subjected.”
Louis Judels Amsterdam, 10 March 1902 – Amsterdam, 15 May 1940. He reached the age of 38 years. Occupation: Office Clerk.
Mina Judels-Kleerekoper Amsterdam, 2 May 1903 – Amsterdam, 15 May 1940. She reached the age of 37 years.
Mia Judels Amsterdam, 19 July 1926 – Amsterdam, 15 May 1940. She reached the age of 13 years.
Bert Judels. Amsterdam, 29 April 1936 – Amsterdam, 15 May 1940. He reached the age of 4 years.
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 decided to take their own lives between 11-16 May 1940, the first few days of the invasion and occupation by Nazi Germany of the Netherlands.
Rather than go into the hundreds, I decided to focus on one family.
The photograph at the top of this post is the wedding photo of Robert Paul Belinfante and Marianne Belinfante Lisser.
Marianne and Robert attempted suicide on the 13th of May 1940, in their hometown of Laag Keppel. Marianne was pregnant at the 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 20 May 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 11 January 1933. Robert then received an opportunity to take over the practice in Keppel. 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 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.
It’s an important and heartbreaking story that needs to be told. It was just one story among the thousands.
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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.
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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.
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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Something which maybe a controversial topic is suicide. However in the context of the Holocaust I believe it is an important subject to address.
I have said this before that I don’t believe that number of 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, is a correct number. I believe it to be much higher.
I was looking at some figures of deaths in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of the Nazis of the Netherlands. The Dutch army capitulated on May 14,1940. On that same day and the following days a great number of Dutch Jews committed suicide. Sometimes it would be complete families that would take their own lives, or that by the hand of parents. This was not because they were ill but because they feared that the fate that awaited them would be worse then death.
These numbers are not included in the official Holocaust numbers.
Below is a list of some of those who saw no other way out then to take their own lives and sometimes that of their children too. May they never be forgotten. #WEREMEMBER
Eduard Wiener, wife Henriette van Gigch and son Eduard.
Zofja Josefsberg
Leonard Polak Daniels
Emanuel Boekman and wife Jansje Boekman-Nerden
Bruno Asch
Bernard Aa and his wife Dina van der Kar and his parents , Hermanus Aa and Sara Klok.
Walter Maijer,his wife Anneliese Maijer-Cohen and 4 year old daughter Marianne Yvonne Maijer
Eduard Henri Benjamin van Lier
Abraham Leviticus
Jacob Benjamin Gersons and his wife Sientje Gersons-van der Kous
Andries de Metz
Isaac van Loon
Elkan Sanders, his wife Betsy Cornelia Sanders-Kooperberg and 2 year old daughter Els Sanders.
Abraham Delmonte
Jacob Keesing and his wife Esperance Keesing-Peekel
Jacob van Gelderen, his wife Alexandrina van Gelderen-de Vries, his son Johan van Gelderen, daughter Margreet van Gelderen
Mozes de Haas.
There were many more but my heart can’t take looking any more of these poor souls.
It is just so hard to fathom the desperation and the lack of hope, that they resorted to such a tragic measure. This is just a snap shot from one country, I am sure the Jews in the Netherlands were not the only ones. These tragedies must have been repeated throughout occupied Europe.
The bigger tragedy is that they probably would have been murdered either way. Approximately 75% of the Dutch Jewish citizens were murdered.
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.
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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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.
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Now I am not a person who subscribes to conspiracy theories , but the suicide of Hajime Sugiyama appears to be a bit odd to me.
There were many Japanese officers who committed suicide at the end of WWII, but most would do this in the traditional way of of the ritual suicide of Seppuku, sometimes referred to as harakiri.
However, on September 12,1945 Hajime Sugiyama committed suicide by shooting himself four times in the chest with his revolver while seated at his desk in his office, 10 days after the surrender of Japan. At home, his wife also killed herself.
Getting back to Sugiyama’s suicide though, he shot himself FOUR times in the chest with his revolver, this means he had to pull the trigger four times.
Maybe it is just me but to me that sounds quite bizarre. There are very few law enforcement agencies who would considered that to be a clear cut suicide. I am pretty sure under normal circumstances that would be treated as a homicide.
I have no way of proving that of course but to me it is a curious suicide.
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History of Sorts 
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