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K.J. Dijkstra

20 Apr, 10 tweets, 5 min read

(1/10) On 21-04-1896 Truus Wijsmuller (born Meijer) was born.
Truus Wijsmuller, the woman who, with her 'big mouth', saved 10.000 Jewish children.
It starts in 1933, when Hitler came to power. She travels to Germany to pick up relatives of Jewish acquaintances.

(2/10) A few days after kristallnacht she travels to the Dutch-German border to see what is happening there. She takes a Yiddish-speaking Polish boy, under her skirts, to Amsterdam.
In November 1938, the British government decides they will take Jewish children for temporary stay

(3/10) So, on 02-12-1938, she is invited to visit the new Dutch Childrens Committee. They ask her to go to Vienna to meet a certain Dr. Eichmann.
As she is a woman, Eichmann at first snaps at her, but she meets him undaunted.
His reaction: 100% Aryan and yet so crazy.

(4/10) Eichmann thinks he is setting her an impossible task by giving her permission to travel with 600 children within five days on "Shabbat". Wijsmuller immediately went to the station to reserve trains. The parents, the Jewish organizations and Wijsmuller succeeded...

(5/10) They get 600 children to leave Vienna on Saturday 10 December. 500 children travelled via Hoek van Holland to England; the other 100 were accommodated in a school in The Hague and stayed in the Netherlands.

(6/10) Between December 1938 and the outbreak of WW2 she organizes trips several times a week with children from the Nazi area, mostly to the Uk, but also to the Netherlands and later to Belgium and France.

She was involved, as a director of the Amsterdam Burgerweeshuis...

(7/10) ..an orphanage, where German refugee children are housed. The children call her 'aunt Truus'.
In May 1942 she is arrested. The Gestapo suspects her of smuggling false identity papers for Dutch Jews to help them escape.
But they can't proof anything, so she is released.

(8/10) She is known to the Germans as "die verrückte Frau Wijsmuller" (the crazy Wijsmuller woman), because she helps Jews, for nothing.
In 1943 she arranges that all children in #Westerbork receive a package at christmas.

The list of her actions goes on and on.

(9/10) Her reaction after the war:
"What I did was not enough. It was only about ten thousand children. How many millions died after that?"

Wikipedia on Truus Wijsmuller:
translate.google.com/translate?dept…

Story in The times of Isreal:
timesofisrael.com/truus-wijsmull…

(10/10) In 2017 a documentary "Truus' children" has been made about her and the children she saved.
Trailer:

In 1966 she was named as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

A real (underrated) heroine.🕯️❤️🕯️

She passed away on 30-08-1978

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K.J. Dijkstra

@shannara77

19 Apr

(1/8) On 19-04-1862 Helena Seijffers, or Leentje as she was called, was born in Den Bosch. She and her family moved in 1886 to Uden. She worked as a maid with Jewish families throughout the Netherlands. She remains unmarried.
📷Leentje on the right with her sister Rosa.

(2/8) From 1912 she continues to live in Uden for good. With her sister Rosa, brother-in-law Bram Wolf and their two children Cato and Louis. When Louis is married and Bram Wolf dies suddenly in 1933, the three women Rosa, Cato and Leentje continue to live in this house.

(3/8) It is 09-04-1943, 10 days before her 81st birthday, when a bus stops before their house. Leentje is picked up. She has difficulty walking. Her briefcase is thrown into the bus and Leentje herself is roughly picked up and pushed into the bus😠
Two neighbors watch it happen.

Read 8 tweets

K.J. Dijkstra

@shannara77

18 Apr

(1/6) On 18-04-1925 Helmut Herz, a carpenter, was born. He was the son of Otto, born 24-03-1898 and Paula Rebecka nee Stern, born 30-11-1899.
Helmut had 3 siblings.
Renate Jenny Regine, born 03-02-1930 and the twins Samuel Paul Albert and Ursula Emma Hermine, born 21-02-1933.

(2/6) The family lived in Schmallenberg, Germany. That's were all the children were also born. They moved to the Netherlands in 1938. Probably to escape fascism.
In Schmallenberg stolpersteine have been placed where they used to live.
In the Netherlands they lived in Dinxperlo.

(3/6) Dinxperlo is located on the border with Germany. Together with the German town of Suderwick, it forms a continuous settlement (twin village) through which the border runs.
In the mid 30's many Jewish refugees entered the Netherlands via this border.

Read 6 tweets

K.J. Dijkstra

@shannara77

15 Apr

(1/9) After Bergen-Belsen was liberated on 15-04-1945, photographer George Rodger took this picture. A picture of a young boy walking along dead people, looking averted. For many years it was thought this was a German boy who walked carelessly past the corpses.

(2/9) But it was Dutch Jewish boy Sieg Maandag, born 24-08-1937 in Amsterdam. He is the son of Isaäc, who worked at the diamond exchange, born 14-05-1912 and Keetje nee Groen. He had a younger sister, Henneke, born 30-12-1938. Sieg was only 5 when he was deported.😢

(3/9) They probably arrived on 05-05-1943 in #Westerbork.
On 01-02-1944 they were all moved to Bergen Belsen 📷concentration camp. 10 months later, on 04-12-1944, Isaäc was deported to concentration camp Sachsenhausen and the next day Keetje was deported to Neuengamme camp.

Read 10 tweets

K.J. Dijkstra

@shannara77

14 Apr

(1/4) On 14-04-1931 Sonja Koekoek (12yr) was born in Amsterdam. She was the daughter of Samuel, born 20-06-1902 and Jansje Koekoek nee Canes, born 04-09-1905.
Sonja had a younger brother Abraham or Appie as he was called, born 11-10-1935 (7yr).

(2/4) Samuel was a wholesaler of foodstuffs, or as his truck says "Groothandel in biscuits" or "wholesaler of biscuits". They used to lived in Amsterdam on the Plantage Franschelaan number 25, which was after the war renamed to Henri Polaklaan.

(3/4) They lived in the house with, what was called, the most beautiful balcony of Amsterdam.

In 1943 they were deported to #Westerbork.
According their Jewish Council Card they were probably in #Westerbork from 25-05-1943.
They 'lived' in barrack 62.

Read 4 tweets

K.J. Dijkstra

@shannara77

13 Apr

(1/6) On my daily walk I just 'stumbled' over 2 new Stolpersteine here in Gouda.
The first is Basia (Basje) Austeiczer-Udler. She was born on 15-09-1872 in Kosmin (Poland) and was married to Max Austeiczer, born 22-07-1870 in Starokonstantinov (now Ukraine) who died in 1932.

(2/6) They had 2 daughters. Berta, born 25-07-1898 and Schrifa, born 06-07-1896. Both were born in Starokonstantinov.
In 1910 the family came to Rotterdam and lived there on several places. Schrifa, died 23-05-1935.
In 1943 Basje and Berta lived in Gouda.

(3/6) Berta was a lawyer and attorney.
Basje probably was in #Westerbork from 25-03-1943. Berta survived the war and maybe she tried to help her mother via her job. On Basjes Jewish Council Card(s) it says that the vice president of the Rotterdam court tried to get her on the...

Read 6 tweets

K.J. Dijkstra

@shannara77

12 Apr

(1/4) On 12-04-1934 Jacob Groenteman was born.
Today he could have been 87 years old...
He is the son of Abraham, born 18-10-1910 and Marie Anna nee van der Goen, born 22-03-1910.
Jacob had a little sister Rosina, born 30-09-1936.

(2/4) They used to live in Amsterdam in the Jodenbreestraat 62 (📷1909). It was a lively straat where many Jews lived. It was in the middle of the so called "JUDENVIERTEL"
In 1944 most of the Jews were deported (killed😢) and the houses in the Jodenbreestraat were empty.

(3/4) Especially in the winter of 1944-1945, the so called 'hongerwinter' literally 'hunger winter' everything what could be burned was taken from the houses. After the war many of the dilapidated houses were demolished. So the street as it was before the war does no longer exist

Read 4 tweets

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