Tessera

Through the Looking-Glass

@ramonfliek.bsky.social

“Do you know why it happened, because ordinary people let it happen...” find the full stories here: https://www.facebook.com/ramonfliek and keep track of the of US Democracy here: https://www.trumpactiontracker.info

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Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · yesterday

August 4, 1944: The Secret Annex was raided by the Gestapo following a tip from an unknown informant. Anne and the 7 others were arrested and deported to #Westerbork from where they were send to #Auschwitz, Anne and Margot both died in #Bergen-belsen in early 1945. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 2d ago

August 3, 1942: The 7th transport from #Westerbork left for #Auschwitz with 1013 Jewish jews. After the selection, 697 people were used for slave labor. The other deportees were immediately murdered in the gas chambers. Wolf van Naarden (b. 1920) was the sole survivor. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Wolf van Naarden (b. 1920) was the sole survivor of the transport that set out on August 3. After the war, he testified in Rotterdam that his entire family had been given three days to report to the assembly point at the city gate (Poortgebouw). The deportees were ordered to reach this location by July 29, 1942 and from there they were taken to Westerbork where they spent three days prior to departure. Westerbork was guarded by Dutch gendarmes, members of the Marechaussee, who also watched over the deportees as they proceeded from the camp to the train station in Hooghalen.
Hitzerus Mees (1876–1952), a non-Jewish physician who lived in Rotterdam, wrote in his diary on July 30, 1942, that 1,500 Jews from the city had been summoned to the transport but only 1,000 of them had reported to the assembly point at the Stieltjesplein, the location of the Poortgebouw. These Jews, he continued, would be transported to Poland in cattle cars, standing upright for days with no opportunity to tend to their bodily needs. They would be allowed to bring food for the four-day journey, as well as a winter coat and two blankets; and the Germans would appropriate the blankets once the Jews were dead. Each person would have to take a backpack because families would be separated. They would also have to surrender the keys to their homes and turn over the contents of their dwellings to the Germans as a “contribution” (Liebesgabe). He added that many Jews were committing suicide and that the press was not being allowed to report it.
On arrival at Auschwitz and after the selection, 429 men and 268 women were brought into the camp for slave labor. The other deportees were immediately murdered in the gas chambers.
Photo: A German officer inspecting a cattle car with people bound for Auschwitz.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 3d ago

August 2, 1944: The Germans liquidated the so-called “family camp for Gypsies” (Zigeunerfamilienlager) at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Approximately 4,300 children, women, and men—the last Roma and Sinti prisoners of the camp—were murdered in the gas chambers that night. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

photo: Settela Steinbach - the Sinti girl looking out between the doors of the cattle train that would take her, and her family, to Auschwitz.
On 19 May of that year, Settela Steinbach, together with her family, was put on a transport from #Westerbork along with 244 other Romani to #Auschwitz-Birkenau on a train that also contained Jewish prisoners.
On the night of August 2/3, 1944: The liquidation of the Zigeunerlager took place and almost 3,000 Roma and Sinti, including Settela, her mother (Emilia), two brothers (Philibert and Willem), two sisters (Florentina and Elisabeth), aunt (Theresia), two nephews (Johannes and Jean) and niece (Walda) were murdered in the gas chambers that night. Of the Steinbach family, only the father (Heinrich) survived; he died in 1946 and is buried in the cemetery of Maastricht.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 4d ago

August 1, 1944: The Warsaw Uprising began. The Polish underground resistance tried and failed to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. 90000 civilians were sent to labour camps, 60000 were shipped to death and concentration camps. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

The Uprising began on 1 August 1944 as part of a nationwide Operation Tempest, launched at the time of the Soviet Lublin–Brest Offensive. The main Polish objectives were to drive the Germans out of Warsaw while helping the Allies defeat Germany. An additional, political goal of the Polish Underground State was to liberate Poland's capital and assert Polish sovereignty before the Soviet Union and Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation, which already controlled eastern Poland, could assume control. Other immediate causes included a threat of mass German round-ups of able-bodied Poles for "evacuation"; calls by Radio Moscow's Polish Service for uprising; and an emotional Polish desire for justice and revenge against the enemy after five years of German occupation.
Despite the early gains by the Home Army, the Germans successfully counterattacked on 25 August, in an attack that killed as many as 40,000 civilians. The uprising was now in a siege phase which favored the better-equipped Germans and eventually the Home Army surrendered on 2 October when their supplies ran out. The Germans then deported the remaining civilians and razed the city itself.
The entire civilian population of Warsaw was expelled from the city and sent to a transit camp Durchgangslager 121 in Pruszków. Out of 350,000–550,000 civilians who passed through the camp, 90,000 were sent to labour camps in the Third Reich, 60,000 were shipped to death and concentration camps (including Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, and Mauthausen, among others), while the rest were transported to various locations in the General Government.
Photo: Tadeusz Rajszczak "Maszynka" (left), Ryszard Michał Lach, and one other young soldier from "Miotła" Battalion (Polish residence army), September 2, 1944.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 5d ago

July 31, 1942: The 6th transport left camp #Westerbork for #Auschwitz with 1007 deportees. 200, many of them children and elderly, were murdered in the gas chambers on arrival. None survived the war. Two years later the 96th transport left Westerbork for #BergenBelsen. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

July 31, 1942: The 6th transport left camp #Westerbork for Auschwitz-Birkenau with 1007 Jewish men, women and children. After selection, 490 men and 317 women were led into the camp for slave labor. The men were tattooed with the serial numbers 54588–55077, and the women were seared with the numbers 13834–14150. The other 200 deportees (many children and elderly) were murdered in the gas chambers on arrival. None of the deportees from this transport survived the war.
Two years later on July 31, 1944 the 95th and 96th transports left the station at #Westerbork with 391 people in cattle wagons. 213 were send to #Theresienstadt and 178 to #BergenBelsen.
Most of the 213 Jewish people that were send to Theresienstadt would end up later that year in the gas chambers of #Auschwitz-Birkenau. There isn't any concrete information on the 178 send to Bergen-Belsen as the SS destroyed most of the prisoner and staff administration, but most of them most likely died of disease, starvation, exhaustion and lack of medical attention. Both Margot and Anne Frank died in Bergen-Belsen in early 1945.
In these two years 90 out of a total of 99 transports to the "east" had left Westerbotk with an average of 1080 people on each transport. Well over a hundred thousand people were put on these transports to death and only around 5000 survived the war. Most of them came home to nothing, their homes had been stolen and not returned, their possessions had been confiscated and were not returned and most of their families had been murdered.
photo: Dying women huddle on the ground behind the barbed-wire enclosure at Bergen-Belsen, 1945.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 6d ago

July 30, 1942: Dog Requisition at the Olympic Stadium, Amsterdam. The Germans confiscated all animals they could use for labor and food, and so they took peoples dogs. Dogs were often used to walk ahead of the German troops through areas where landmines were laid. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Photo: Dog Requisition, Amsterdam by Karel Bönnekamp / Collection Verzetsmuseum Amsterdam (Dutch Resistance Museum).

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · last wk.

July 29, 1941: Auschwitz Lagerführer Karl Fritzch selected 10 prisoners in Block 14 to die, in retaliation for the escape of a prisoner. During selection Maksymilian Kolbe, stepped out of line and asked the camp commander to take him instead of Franciszek Gajowniczek. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

July 29, 1941: Auschwitz camp manager (Lagerführer) Karl Fritzch selected 10 hostages from among the prisoners in Block 14 in retaliation for the escape of a prisoner, Zygmunt Pilawski. He condemned them to death by starvation in the bunker of Block 11.
During the selection, a Polish prisoner who was a Franciscan monk and missionary, Maksymilian Kolbe (in the prewar picture), stepped out of the line and asked the camp commander to take him instead of a desperate selected prisoner Franciszek Gajowniczek. After a brief dispute with Father Kolbe, Fritzch agreed to the substitution, especially when he found out that Kolbe was a Catholic priest. The 10 selected prisoners were led off to Block 11. In the Bunker Register, their admission is noted without listing names, numbers, day of admission, or day of death.
Zygmunt Pilawski was captured and taken back to Auschwitz. He was shot on 31 July 1942.
Maksymilian Kolbe was killed with a poisonous injection on 14 August 1941. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II in October 1982. Franciszek Gajowniczek survived the camp and died in 1995.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · last wk.

July 28, 1945: "A Mother finds her son through a magazine photo.” He had missed her so much in #Bergen-Belsen. But now Sieg can embrace his mother Keetje again. That they found each other is all due to a photo of Sieg in Life Magazine. #RememberHistory #USAtoday @belsenmemorial.bsky.social

(photo on the left) Sieg at Bergen Belsen, Sieg's photo in Life Magazine May 1945.

The photo was taken shortly after the liberation of the concentration camp. The Briton George Rodger made a photo reportage of the unimaginable suffering he witnessed there — photos of piles of corpses, of prisoners so weak they barely realized they were free, and of that little boy walking past the many bodies.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · last wk.

July 27, 1942: The 5th transport left from #Westerbork for #Auschwitz with 1010 people on board. It arrived on July 29. After selection, 788 were chosen for slave labour. 222 were murdered in the gas chambers, including 63 boys and 57 girls under the age of 18. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

From the beginning of the transports of deportees from Westerbork, the trains ran twice a week to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the third week, starting with the transport of July 27, 1942, the fixed departure days were Monday and Friday.
Only in November 1942 did it happen twice that only one train departed in a week.
The number of people per transport was determined in Berlin. Camp commandant Deppner could easily meet the desired numbers, because in July, August, and September 1942, transports arrived in Westerbork from the Randstad (the western urban conurbation of the Netherlands) almost daily, sometimes several per day.
The 5th transport reached Auschwitz on July 29. After selection, 473 men and 315 women were chosen for slave labour. The men were tattooed with the numbers 53325–53797, and the women received the numbers 12010–12324. The remaining 222 deportees were taken away and murdered in the gas chambers, including 63 boys and 57 girls under the age of 18.
Photo: Jews in Amsterdam being Deported to Camp Westerbork, July 1942.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · last wk.

July 26, 1941: The Nazis began to set up the Białystok Ghetto. #RememberHistory #USAtoday “It happened, therefore it can happen again. It can happen and it can happen anywhere” (Primo Levi, Survivor of #Auschwitz). See less

Photo: #Białystok Jews forced by the Germans to sweep streets, June 1941

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 2w ago

July 25, 1943: Benito Mussolini resigned as Prime Minister of Italy, along with the other Fascist Party members of his cabinet, bringing an end to a dictatorship of more than 17 years. Mussolini was arrested when he left the palace. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 2w ago

July 24, 1942: The 4th transport from #Westerbork to #Auschwitz left with 1000 men, women and children on board. 183 were killed in the gas chambers on arrival and most would not survive the war. Rachel van Gelder, 5 years old, was murdered on arrival. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Photo: This is Rachel van Gelder, 5 years old. She was on this transport together with her mother, Eva (28), and her father, Simon (31). Rachel and Eva were murdered in the gas chambers on arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Simon was selected for forced labor and would die just two months later

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 2w ago

Heinrich Himmler launched a manhunt to catch the remaining conspirators in the 20 July Bomb Plot. #RememberHistory #USAtoday “It happened, therefore it can happen again. It can happen and it can happen anywhere” (Primo Levi, Survivor of #Auschwitz).

On July 20 an attempt was made to assassinate Adolf Hitler, perpetrated by Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators within the German military. At 12:42 p.m. during a conference at the Wolf's Lair, a bomb that Stauffenberg had concealed inside a briefcase went off, killing a stenographer and leaving three officers with fatal injuries. The others in the room, including Hitler himself, were wounded but survived.
#Stauffenberg flew to Berlin to carry out the next step of the military coup, but the plan stalled when he was unable to get confirmation that Hitler was dead. A radio broadcast at 6:30 p.m. reported that Hitler had survived and the situation became increasingly confused. By the end of the day the coup had failed and Hitler loyalists began arresting the conspirators.
Claus von Stauffenberg and a few other resistance members were overpowered at their headquarters in Berlin after a brief shoot-out, during which he was wounded in the shoulder. Later that night he and the other were executed by a firing squad.
The German general that had ordered the swift executions had been part of the resistance but changed sides when Hitler was found to have survived the assassination attempt as to avoid being deemed a traitor. He was still executed later for treason.
photo: Claus von Stauffenberg with eye patch 1944.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 2w ago

July 22, 1942: The Grossaktion Warsaw ("Great Action"), Mass deportations of Jews began from the Warsaw Ghetto to the newly finished camp #Treblinka. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

The Grossaktion, Nazi code name for the deportation and mass murder of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during the summer of 1942, beginning on 22 July. During the Grossaktion, Jews were terrorized in daily round-ups, marched through the ghetto, and assembled at the Umschlagplatz station square for what was called in the Nazi euphemistic jargon "resettlement to the East". From there, they were sent aboard overcrowded cattle trains to the extermination camp in Treblinka.
The largest number of Warsaw Jews were transported to their deaths at Treblinka in the period between the Jewish holidays Tisha B'Av (23 July) and Yom Kippur (21 September) in 1942. The killing centre had been just been completed 80 kilometres (50 mi) from Warsaw, specifically for the Final Solution. Treblinka was equipped with gas chambers disguised as showers for the "processing" of entire transports of people. Led by the SS-leader Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik, the campaign, codenamed Operation Reinhard, became the critical part of the Holocaust in occupied Poland.
Photo: Umschlagplatz holding pen for deportations to Treblinka death camp.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 2w ago

July 21, 1942: The 3rd transport left #Westerbork towards the east. The train consisted of 1002 Jewish men, women and children only 4 people survived #Auschwitz. #RememberHistory #USAtoday @kampwesterbork.bsky.social @auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 2w ago

July 20, 1944: Operation Valkyrie, A group of Wehrmacht officers, diplomats, and civil servants, led by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

They knew that failure would likely cost them their lives, yet they chose to act out of moral responsibility and opposition to tyranny. The attempt was unsuccessful, resulting in Stauffenberg and more than 200 other people being executed. Thousands connected to the plot were arrested, persecuted, publicly punished, and many were killed in the aftermath.

Photo: Hitler shaking hands with General Karl Bodenschatz, accompanied by Stauffenberg (left) and Keitel (right). Bodenschatz was seriously wounded five days later by Stauffenberg's bomb. Rastenburg, 15 July 1944.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 2w ago

July 20, 1943: On this Tuesday, the 19th and last train with destination #Sobibor left Camp #Westerbork. In the cattle cars were 2209 men, women and children. Not a single person would survive. #RememberHistory #USAtoday @sobibor.org @kampwesterbork.bsky.social

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 2w ago

July 19, 1937: The Degenerate Art Exhibition, organized by Adolf Ziegler and the Nazi Party, opened in Munich at the German Archaeological Institute the day after the opening in Munich of the display of "Great German Art" (Großen Deutschen Kunst). #RememberHistory #USAtoday

July 19, 1937: The Degenerate Art Exhibition (Die Ausstellung "Entartete Kunst"), organized by Adolf Ziegler and the Nazi Party, opened in Munich at the German Archaeological Institute the day after the opening in Munich of the display of "Great German Art" (Großen Deutschen Kunst).

The exhibit, which was free, drew 30,000 people on its opening day, compared to only 10,000 who paid 50 pfennigs to see the exhibit of "great" art. The exhibit featured 650 paintings, sculptures and prints by 112 artists, with examples of what the government defined as items that "insult German feeling, or destroy or confuse natural form or simply reveal an absence of adequate manual and artistic skill". The exhibition, which would run for seven months until November 30.

photo: Joseph Goebbels(Reichsminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) views the Degenerate Art exhibition, with two paintings of Emil Nolde hanging to the left.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 3w ago

July 18, 1935: Hermann Göring issued a manifesto ordering legal authorities to take action against any priests that engage in "political Catholicism" against the Nazi state and if so will be "forbidden". #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 3w ago

July 17, 1943: The village of Krasowo-Częstki in Nazi-occupied Poland was completely burned and 257 of its inhabitants, mostly women and children, murdered by the Ordnungspolizei and SS in retaliation for the deaths of 8 Germans. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 3w ago

July 16, 1942: The second transport to #Auschwitz left from #Westerbork, 895 people were deported, only 2 survived. #RememberHistory #USAtoday @kampwesterbork.bsky.social @nmkampamersfoort.bsky.social @auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social

On the morning of July 16, 1942, a group of Jews from Amsterdam arrived at Hooghalen station. Their registration took place in the registration barracks of Westerbork camp. They were given coffee and some sandwiches and then returned to Hooghalen station.
Prior to the transport, Jews in Amsterdam had been required to report. Because too few people responded to this summons, 300 prisoners from Amersfoort camp were transferred to Westerbork camp. To avoid losing time, the group from Amersfoort was registered at Hooghalen station. Immediately after being registered, they were deregistered again. The prisoners then boarded the waiting freight cars. The train consisted of 15 cars: two passenger cars for the German guards and 13 freight cars for 70 people each, none with a toilet.
The chaotic scenes surrounding the registration of newly arrived prisoners caused unrest in camp Westerbork. There was also outrage over the orphaned children who had been deported the day before. The fact that transport was by freight car shocked many. The German authorities, however, were satisfied: "The first two trains rolled out without any difficulties…" To prevent further unrest, the next transports were carried out using passenger cars.
One of the two survivors of this transport was Leo Schnog (Bergheim, 1910). Upon arrival, he immediately recognized Auschwitz as a concentration camp. He had already been held in Dachau in 1938. He testified that people were driven together with carbines. Leo Schnog was part of a group of 25 to 30 people who had to remove the luggage of the people from the cars.
According to Danuta Czech's Auschwitz Chronicle, from the combined transport of July 15 and 16, 1942, 1,251 men and 300 women were imprisoned in the camp to perform forced labor. The remaining Jews were murdered in the gas chambers immediately after arrival.
Photo: A train leaves Westerbork for Auschwitz 1944.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 3w ago

July 15, 1942: The first transport from #Westerbork to #Auschwitz departed, carrying 1137 Jewish men, women and children. It also included hundreds of prisoners and at the last moment, commander Erich Deppner added 51 children from the orphanage. Only 8 people survived. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Two weeks earlier, on July 1, 1942, the function of Westerbork camp had changed from 'Westerbork Refugee Camp' to 'Police Concentration Camp Westerbork'.
The train was carrying 1,137 Jewish men, women and children. The transport also included hundreds of prisoners from Westerbork camp. At the last moment, camp commander Erich Deppner decided that 51 children from the orphanage had to be taken along.
Because Camp Westerbork didn't have its own railway connection yet, the prisoners had to walk the more than five kilometers long distance from the camp to the station in Hooghalen. Most of the men, women and children on this transport, had arrived from Amsterdam in Westerbork the night before. Among them were 51 children from the Jewish orphanage.
After a train journey of about two days, the transports arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau. On arrival, the deportees were subjected to selection. A small part was appointed for forced labor, while the majority was killed in the gas chambers immediately upon arrival. Of the people taken away with the first transport, only eight survived the war.
The deportations from Westerbork continued almost weekly afterwards. Between July 15, 1942 and September 13, 1944, a total of 93 transports departed from Westerbork to destruction and concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, #Sobibor, #BergenBelsen and #Theresienstadt.
In total, over 107,000 Jews, 245 Sinti and Roma and a small group of protesters were deported from Westerbork. Only a small portion of them returned after the war.
The departure of the first deportation train on 15 July 1942 marks the beginning of the systematic deportation of tens of thousands of Jewish citizens from the Netherlands to the destruction camps in German-occupied Europe.
Photo: A train leaving Westerbork for Auschwitz.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 3w ago

July 14, 1940: Bastille Day in the unoccupied portion of France was observed solemnly with flags at half mast. #RememberHistory #USAtoday #BastilleDay

photo: German soldiers salute their officers at a Parisian cafe on Bastille Day, July 1940

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 3w ago

July 13, 1943: On this Tuesday morning in 1943, train 18 leaves #Westerbork for #Sobibor. On arrival at Sobibor 3 days later on July 16, 1943 all on the train were murdered. Mirjam Reisel (17) was alone on this transport, her parents and brother had already been killed. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 3w ago

July 12, 1941: Today both Eliazer Pampel and Israël Spanjar died in #Mauthausen concentration camp. They had been arrested durning the first massive Nazi raids and pogroms on February 22/23 1941 in the Jewish neighborhood of Amsterdam, the Jodenbuurt. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 4w ago

July 11, 1936: Austria and Germany signed an agreement in which Germany pledged to respect Austrian sovereignty in exchange for Austria favoring Germany in its policies. On 12 March 1938, the German Wehrmacht crossed the border into Austria to annex it into Nazi Germany. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

On the morning of 12 March 1938, the 8th Army of the German Wehrmacht crossed the border into Austria to annex the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany.

For the Wehrmacht, the invasion was the first big test of its machinery. Although the invading forces were badly organized and coordination among the units was poor, it mattered little because the Austrian government had ordered the Austrian Bundesheer not to resist.

Photo: Adolf Hitler crosses his birth town of Braunau am Inn, Austria. March 12, 1938.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 4w ago

July 10, 1938: Hitler opened the Great Exhibition of German Art in Munich with a speech attacking the London exhibition of banned German art, calling modern artists "cultural Neanderthals" and "lamentable unfortunates who plainly suffer from defective sight.” #RememberHistory #USAtoday

photo: Adolf Hitler visits the newly open great German art exhibition in Munich. Hitler in the center of the photo with Hermann Göring next to him and Joseph Goebbels behind Göring.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 4w ago

July 9, 1943: The 17th train that had left July 6 from #Westerbork arrived at #Sobibor . In the cattle wagons were 2417 men, women and children. They were all murdered within hours of arrival. Grietje and her husband Israël de Groot were on this train. #RememberHistory #USAtoday @sobibor.org

Grietje has five brothers and three sisters. One of them is Nathan Hilversum, who gained recognition in Amersfoort during the 1930s as an entrepreneur and the founder of the city’s first bus line.

When Grietje is 18 years old, she marries Israël de Groot, who is then 21. Israël was born in Utrecht but lived in Zwolle until his marriage. The wedding took place in Amersfoort on August 9, 1899.

In 1903, according to the birth certificate of Grietje’s son Mozes, the family was living on Mooierstraat. After Mozes, seven more children followed. From the birth records, and later the address books, we get a picture of the many places where Grietje and her family lived. It seems that both family growth and Israël’s business activities influenced their frequent moves.

While Nazi Germany was preparing to invade Poland, Grietje and Israël still believed themselves safe in Amersfoort in August 1939. At the time, they were living at Hessenstraat 5. Unaware of the horror soon to come, they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary on August 19, 1939.

In 1943, they were sent to Westerbork transit camp. Not long after, on July 6, 1943, they were deported to Sobibor extermination camp, where Grietje and her husband Israël de Groot were murdered three days later.

Almost all of Grietje’s children, their partners and grandchildren died in one of the Nazi extermination camps. There was one exception: her son Izak died in Amersfoort in March 1941, the result of a bizarre and fatal accident he witnessed.

Only her granddaughter Grietje de Groot, born in 1929 and daughter of Izak, survived the war. She passed away in 2004 in Amsterdam.

photo: In front of the Logement (a lodging business) de Welkombuis, Sint Joris Street, Amersfoort.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 4w ago

July 8, 1943: Jean Moulin, 44, a leader of the French Resistance against the Nazi German occupation of France, died after being tortured by German officer Klaus Barbie while in Gestapo custody. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Jean Pierre Moulin was a French civil servant and hero of the French Resistance who succeeded in unifying the main networks of the Resistance in World War II. He served as the first President of the National Council of the Resistance from 27 May 1943 until his death less than two months later.

A prefect in the Aveyron (1937–1939) and Eure-et-Loir (1939–1940) departments, he is remembered today as one of the main heroes of the French Resistance and for his efforts to unify it under Charles de Gaulle. He was tortured by German officer Klaus Barbie while in Gestapo custody.

In 1947, Barbie was recruited as an agent for the 66th Detachment of the US Army Counterintelligence Corps.

Photo: A famous photograph of Jean Moulin with a scarf and fedora, taken in 1940 by Marcel Bernard.

Through the Looking-Glass @ramonfliek.bsky.social · 4w ago

July 7, 1945: Ernst Knorr, a Nazi interrogator, was found dead in his cell with a piece of rope around his neck. It is presumed he committed suicide, but it could have been staged by the guards. Ernst himself had staged the "suicide" of multiple prisoners during the War. #RememberHistory #USAtoday

Ernst Knorr, a notorious Nazi SD interrogator, was found dead in his cell in Scheveningen, with a piece of rope around his neck. Authorities presume he committed suicide, but the suicide could have easily been staged by the Dutch guards. Ernst himself had staged the "suicide" of multiple prisoners during the War.
Knorr was known during the war as a ruthless interrogator, who severely abused arrested resistance members to make them talk. In 1941 he was present when resistance fighter Sjaak Boezeman was beaten to death during an interrogation in The Hague. The Germans covered up the murder by listing cardiac arrest as the cause of death and cremating the body.
Even last year, in 1944, Knorr was personally involved in three executions in Drenthe. There, a Landwachter (collaborationist auxiliary policeman) had been killed in a firefight during the chance discovery of four people in hiding. Knorr came specially from Groningen to execute four men who had been captured. Among them was Ritse Vos, the 16-year-old son of the farmer at whose home the people in hiding had been found.
At the end of the war, Knorr fled with many other ruthless colleagues from the Scholtenhuis to Schiermonnikoog. They hoped to escape to Germany via the Wadden island, but ended up surrendering to the Allies in late May.
Knorr was locked up in the Scheveningen Penitentiary, the former #Oranjehotel where so many of his victims had also been held. He was found dead there this morning.
There are rumors that the guards took revenge on Knorr and beat him to death. It is said that he would not have had any way to hang himself at all, since no rope could be tied to the ceiling.
However, an investigator at the prison says it is also possible that Knorr tied the rope to the wall and strangled himself that way. In any case, further investigation into the matter is not considered necessary.
Photo: SS-Untersturmführer Ernst Knorr.