The name Abraham is synonymous with the age of 50 in the Netherlands. When a man reaches the age of 50. Dutchmen who turn fifty are embarrassed by a life-sized puppet of Abraham in the front garden or outside an apartment.
Abraham Barend did not reach the age of 50.
Abraham Barend did not reach the age of 40.
Abraham Barend did not reach the age of 30.
Abraham Barend did not reach the age of 20.
Abraham Barend did not reach the age of 10.
Abraham Barend reached the age of 9.
Abraham Barend was born in Amsterdam on 12 January 1934 and murdered at Sobibor on 2 July 1943.
Franz Paul Stang was an Austrian police officer and commandant of the Nazi extermination camps Sobibor and Treblinka during World War II. He did reach the age of 50—in fact, he reached the age of 63.
Prior to Sobibor, he had also worked for the T4 program. He denied so many children their early birthdays, not even reaching double figures.
Franz Karl Reichleitner, was the commandant of Sobibor in 1943. He died at the age of 37.
The photograph above is of SS officers entertaining a customs official on the terrace of the Merry Flea. The high-quality drinking glasses were likely stolen from gas chamber victims. (Left-to-right: Daschel, Reichleitner, Niemann, Schulze, Bauer, two unknown women, and the customs official)
Celebrating while women and children were murdered in the gas chambers.
One of the SS officers, Erich Bauer, died at age 80.
Anna (also known as) Ans van Dijk, was a collaborator of Jewish descent. The Germans arrested Van Dijk while he was in hiding on April 25, 1943. After she agreed to work for the SD, Van Dijk was released. It is estimated that approximately seven hundred people had been arrested—because of her actions. Van Dijk is the last Dutch woman sentenced to death and whose death sentence was [actually] carried out. The execution took place on January 14, 1948.
I am not judging Ans because none of us have been in that situation, and no one can say with certainty what they would have done had they been in that situation. The reason why I brought up the execution of Ans is to indicate that this was not the last bit of Holocaust history in the Netherlands. Some Jews, after the war, were still being persecuted.
Jewish Amsterdamers, who returned from the death camps after the Second World War, were followed by the security services for years. The Domestic Security Service (BVD), the predecessor of the AIVD, saw the Jews as extremists and a potential danger to democracy.
In Vienna in 1954, the International Auschwitz Committee was founded. This committee encouraged survivors in European countries to establish chapters in their own countries. Following the Auschwitz Commemoration Committee in 1956, they founded the Dutch Auschwitz Committee [NAC]. The initiators of this foundation were Annetje Fels-Kupferschmidt, Eva and Jacques Furth, Rody and Louis Corper, David and Elly Geens, Manus and Saar Neter, and J. Alvares Vega. The NAC organized annual commemorations on January 27th.
Some of these survivors were spied on until 1980 by the Dutch security services. During the Cold War, the main concern for the Dutch government and all other Western nations was communism. Some Dutch Auschwitz committees were members of or had links to, the CPN-Communist Party Netherlands.
The Dutch newspaper ‘Het Parool’ discovered this story and published it in December 2023. The AIVD*, Dutch Secret Service, issued the following statement in relation to the article:
“Het Parool today published an article about the activities of the BVD in the investigation into members of the National Auschwitz Committee. The BVD did not view Holocaust survivors as extremists or a danger to democracy.
The BVD conducted research into communism during the Cold War. That was the biggest threat to national security at the time. Possible research into persons associated with the National Auschwitz Committee can be seen in that light.
It has already been reported in various sources that the NAC is a shell organization of the CPN. This also emerged in a 1999 NIOD report EHRI—Dutch Auschwitz Committee, and a BVD piece previously revealed on the Argus Foundation site. This showed that there was a suspicion that the National Auschwitz Committee was a front organization of the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN). Lou de Jong also warned about this in 1968, as evidenced by an article in the Historisch Nieuwsblad of May 2, 2023.”
According to the Parool investigation, the security service spied on board members of the Auschwitz Committee and followed the committee everywhere, including on commemorative trips to concentration camps. In addition, an informant on the committee—reported everything that happened within the organization to the security service.
It emerged that the members of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee were under surveillance in 1952—four years before the committee existed. Below is the translated text of a part of a report sent on July 24, 1952, to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs.
“I hereby, have the honor to report the following to Your Excellency The Auschwitz commemoration, which was announced with much fuss, took place on June 15, 1952, after being postponed several times. It took peaceful course. About 2,500 people paraded past an urn, which was in an auditorium laid out, the 5th secretary of the Committee” entombed the Auschwitz Urn , approximately 2,500 marched past the urn before a hundred thousand guests, including the Polish envoy and the leaders of the C.P.N., gave a speech in which he described the commemoration as “…an admonition against the unscrupulous forces, those who have survived from that dark chapter of world history and those who could threaten to do this again. Man up against those unscrupulous forces who remain from that dark chapter of world history, and who could threaten us again with this evil. stand up against the perpetrators and—what cannot be concealed when we want to remain serious, also against the guilty ones.”
Buried in a grave donated by the municipality of Amsterdam at the Nieuwe Oosterbegraafplaats. Apparently the G.P.H at the last minute withdrew the slogan to turn the commemoration into a demonstration against fascism.* It may be recalled that the statements made in this regard by the general secretary of the C.P.N. during his May 1 speech in Amsterdam.
To His Excellency the Deputy Prime Minister Minister without Portfolio Ministry of Internal Affairs In copy to; His Excellency the prime minister Square 1813 no. 4 in The Hague
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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Lynn is a psychotherapist and clinical social worker. She is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors. In the interview, we discuss the mental impact her parents’ ordeal had on her and also how that translated into her work as a psychotherapist. She was voted The Best Therapist of 2008 by the Main Line Times newspaper in Pennsylvania, USA, and she specializes in anxiety, trauma, PTSD, and grief.
The story of her parents isn’t just a story of survival. It is a story of kindness and bitterness, a love story, a story of perseverance. It is also a tale of despair and disappointment but in equal measure—a story of victory and hope.
Lynn sent me a number of documents relating to her father, Wicek Friedman, which changed to Victor Friedman. That fact on its own is a good indication that after the Holocaust, the struggle continued—changing your name is not something you do lightly. I presume he changed it to make it easier for the people in his adopted land to be able to pronounce his name. I say adopted land because that is what struck me when I saw the document of the Displace Persons registration (photo at the top), which says, “Does not want to return.” He was born in Krakow, Poland on October 5, 1925.
Victor survived Auschwitz (where he escaped), Sachsenhausen, and Dachau. Lynn received the following information about her father from the International Tracing Service.
“Your father was in Auschwitz Concentration Camp where he had two prisoner numbers, 110225 and 199815. At the beginning of May 1944, he was arrested in Kolozsvár, Hungary, and sent by the Security Police in Budapest to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Germany. On November 17, 1944, Wicek was transported to Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. His Dachau prisoner number was 127009.”
Lynn’s mother, Ella, had also been in Dachau. She was born in Berehova, Berkstad, Czechoslovakia in 1927. After she saw how Victor had been tortured for stealing potato skins to give to those who were starving, she told a friend, “Do you see that brave man—if he survives, I will marry him.”
They did get married in 1950.
Victor and Ella had different outlooks after the war. Victor, although he survived, had many medical complications due to the torture he received in Dachau. Victor’s aim was to replace the horrors he witnessed with acts of kindness. Sadly, he passed away in 1974, just before his 49th birthday. What saddened me to hear is that Victor knew that the hate against the Jews had not disappeared after the Holocaust. He advised his daughter to always be ready to leave.
Ella was basically always in survivor mode as she didn’t show love towards her children. That is not uncommon with survivors—and in a way—it is understandable because she had lost many of her family. She probably was afraid to get too attached again.
She had lied about her age when she was taken to Dachau, giving her year of birth as 1929, but in fact, it was 1927. She reckoned she would have a better chance of survival if the Nazis thought she was younger. Her younger sister had been murdered by the Nazis when she was at the train station—they shot her. Ella passed away in 2017.
This is Lynn speaking about her parents, and it’s just as important as her own experiences.
The National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (abbreviation: NSB) was a Dutch political party that existed from 1931 to 1945. The NSB adhered to the ideology of National Socialism, presented itself not as a party but as a movement based on an anti-democratic attitude, and functioned as a collaboration party during the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War.
One of their slogans was “Freedom, Justice, Welfare.”
Some of their members learned that Freedom, Justice, and Welfare were not quite what they thought they would be. As part of their collaboration with their German counterparts, the Nazis, members of the NSB were also expected to work in Germany. Following is the text of a letter from someone called Dolly, believed to be the daughter of an NSB family.
Dolly soon learned that the “real” slogan for the NSB should have been “Regrets, disappointment, disillusionment.”
November 19, 1942.
Dear Father and Mother,
Finally some messages from me. However, I have to write too quickly, in between my work. I am fortunate enough to give this letter to a Dutchman who is going on leave tomorrow afternoon for 14 days in Leiden. However, he puts this letter on the bus at Eindhoven station. I hope you get it on Saturday, otherwise on Sunday. Now, I can finally write what I want. Please do not pay any attention to what I have written in my previous letters as they are all lies, and I had to write them.
Dear Father and Mother, I am very nervous—every night, there is chaos. I have already been to the Labor Office here a hundred times, including to the doctor, but everything is in vain. I feel so terribly homesick for home. I only weigh 45 kilos, so I have lost 15 kilos, which says something about my height. Now, there is only one way that you can help me get out of here, and that is only a statement from a doctor from home that I am needed there, can get me out of here. Mother, please be so kind as to try it with Doctor Alphen v.d. Veer.
I’m simply exhausted, if I have to stay here any longer I will go crazy with fear and will definitely commit suicide. You are truly my last hope. I have to thank you for the lovely apples. They were very bruised—but did me good anyway. I’m still in the kitchen, from six in the morning until half past nine in the evening, with fifteen minutes of rest to eat. I’m as weak as a dishcloth. We don’t have any free time at all, even working all day on Sundays. How terribly wrong I was about these people. Now I have to pay for it too. The chef throws one insult after another at me. For example: “You foreigners are not good enough to be dragged around by the hair. We are the master race, now and forever, just swallow that with a calm face.”
If you are successful, Father should go to the Labor Office. I believe they will tell you what is so necessary for an explanation. A telegram works more reliably here. Two Dutch girls have already gotten away this way. I now wait every day for the answer that will save me. Help me, please. I am also so alone here that I can hardly do anything. I feel like a prisoner who is allowed to get some fresh air. Father and Mother do not abandon me now. I know I don’t deserve it. But I really want to make it right. I have to finish now, they are already calling me again. In any case, do not leave anything in your letters that I have written, because it will not get through and is dangerous. So see you soon, but I sincerely hope that I can say, see you again.
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Petrus Antonius Aalders was just a young man who wanted to determine his future.
Petrus was born on April 2, 1924, in Gennep, Limburg, the Netherlands and by trade, was a professional hairdresser. After being called up for the Arbeitseinsatz, forced labour in Germany, he went into hiding in Eindhoven. Now and then, he returned to his parents in the Zandstraat in Gennep. During one of those visits, the Germans were waiting for Peter. He tried to flee and received a gunshot in the knee. After a stay at the penitentiary hospital—he was transferred to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, where he was to work as a hairdresser. He died at the camp from typhus. The date of death given is March 31, 1945; Peter died two days before his 21st birthday.
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.
I worked for Philips from 1987 to 1997. It was a company that took great pride in its history. In 1891, mechanical engineer Gerard Philips (1858–1942) and his father—manufacturer, banker and tobacco and coffee trader—Frederik Philips founded the light bulb factory of the same name in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In 1991, on its 100th anniversary, a book of its history was issued to all employees. However, because we were expecting a profit share bonus rather than a book, many employees threw the book in the bin, as a silent protest, as did I. Looking back, I am sorry I did so, because later on I discovered that Philips had a fascinating history, especially during World War II.
The well-known hand dynamo from Philips was designed by Ir. L.J. Kalff and patented in January 1942. There were more than a million copies of the standard Pinch Cat Flashlight model made.
The principle of the squeeze cat consists of electromagnetic induction. When a magnet rotates in a coil, an induction current occurs in the coil. This current could then be used to light a light. The voltage was 2.5 Volts at 100 mA/0.1A; with the help of a lens, the light from a 2.5 V light bulb could shine in a targeted manner.
During the occupation, 4 models were produced:
Type 7424, aluminum, silver-colored (see image);
Type 7424/03, aluminum, green;
Type 7426, aluminum, beige (due to a lack of aluminum, brass was later used and zinc was used later);
Type 7426 Bi-Jou (the so-called “ladies model”), aluminum. Mainly produced around 1940-1941. With a retail price of 8.75 guilders, it is considerably more expensive than the standard model.
From February 1943 until 2 June 1944, the standard squeeze cats were manufactured by, among others, the camp residents of Camp Vught, including Jewish employees of Philips (the so-called Philips Kommando).
On 18 October 1935, Frits Philips was appointed vice-director and a member of the board of Philips. Learning of the expected occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany in World War II in 1940, his father Anton Philips, young nephew Frans Otten, and other Philips family members escaped from the Netherlands and fled to the United States, taking company capital with them. Frits Philips stayed in the Netherlands. Together they managed to keep the company alive during the war.
From 30 May until 20 September 1943, Philips was held in the concentration camp Vught because of a strike at the Philips factory.
During the Occupation, Philips saved the lives of 382 Jews by convincing the Nazis that they were indispensable for the production process at Philips. Mr. Philips reportedly tried to hire as many Jews as possible and then told the Nazi occupiers they were irreplaceable, a strategy that prevented many of them from being sent to Auschwitz.
Of the 469 Jews employed at the factory, 382 survived the war, according to company history.
Some historians are critical of Mr Frits Philips, they say he played a double role in the war because its factory production contributed to the German war industry also. However, the fact is that anyone who defied the Nazi regime put their life at risk.
Employees of the Philips Kommando had a hard time in Vught, but slightly better than the other prisoners. For example, every day at four o’clock these prisoners received a hot meal from Philips. This meal came to be known as Philiprak. In addition, they were assured of a dry workplace, without much interference from the guards.
Despite this, Vught was still a concentration camp. Like all other camps, life was harsh, maybe less harsh than in other camps, but harsh nonetheless.
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 a 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 for 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.
On 4 February 1944, Heinrich Himmler visited Camp Vught and the Philips Kommando following the “bunker drama.”
One of the reasons why a Philips factory was established in Vught was partially because on Sunday morning, 6 December 1942, the British Air Force bombed the Philips factories in Eindhoven. They presumed Philips produced parts for German military equipment. Despite the losses—14 of the 93 aircraft crashed—Operation Oyster was a military success. Large parts of the Philips factories are destroyed. It was a different story for the residents of Eindhoven. Bombs that ended up in the wrong place killed 138 people and damaged many buildings, including a hospital.
Many devices, such as razors, flashlights and paper clips, were made here. The production of “critical” radio tubes started because this enabled young Jewish women to come and work at the “safe” Philips Kommando.
The Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, was the first Japanese diplomat posted to Lithuania, helped a great number of Jews to escape from Lithuania. For that, he received help from The Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk. He was the director of the Philips plants in Lithuania. On 19 June 1940, he was also a part-time acting consul of the Netherlands. Zwartendijk provided some of the fleeing Jews with documents to travel to Curaçao, a Caribbean island and Dutch colony that required no entry visa, or Suriname, which was also a Dutch colony.
Eppo Gans was a Dutch employee of Philips and, with his brother Gerard, was involved in helping Jewish people in hiding. They were half-Jewish. Gans was arrested on 19 October 1941 and imprisoned in Den Bosch, the Oranjehotel, Camp Vught and from there either to Auschwitz with the so-called Philips Commando or to Sachsenhausen on 3 June or 5 September. He died on 26 February 1945 in Neuengamme.
During the Nazi occupation, Eppo and his older brother Gerard worked as a relief worker for Jewish people in hiding. On 29 October 1941, he was discovered and imprisoned by the SS in the House of Detention in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, where he registered as a Jehovah’s Witness. On 17 February 1942, he was taken to prison at The Hague. Later he was deported to Camp Vught.
History of Sorts
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