(1/8) On 24-04-1936 Jozef Alexander Granaat was born in Rotterdam. He was the son of Simon📷, born 13-09-1905 in London and Rachel Bromet, born 03-05-1907 in Amsterdam. Jozef had 3 older brothers:
> Maurice, born 22-07-1928
> Max, born 07-08-1929
> Jacques, born 10-05-1930
(2/8) The family lived in Amsterdam.
The first date on Simon's Jewish Council card says 17-09-1942 so they probably arrived there on that date. On the same card, in red pencil, BB 1.2.44.
They were deported to Bergen-Belsen on 01-02-1944.
(3/8) The whole family survived in Bergen Belsen until close to it's liberation. But early April 1945 prisoners were deported to Theresienstadt. 3 trains left from Bergen Belsen. On the last train were 2500 prisoners (1/3 were Dutch), including the granaat family.
(4/8) The train left in the night of 10 to 11 April. (the camp was liberated on the 15th).
The people were densely packed in the wagons which were polluted within hours due to inadequate sanitation. The already weakened and sick evacuees faced a miserable journey without food.
(5/8) They feared they would be killed.
The train ran in 14 days, which had to stop constantly to give way to other trains or to take cover from bombing raids, first in the direction of Hamburg, then through devastated Berlin and finally stranded at the village of Tröbitz.
(6/8) There the train was liberated by the Russians.
On the way and in the first weeks after arrival, about 500 passengers would die, many as a result of typhoid fever. But also from the sudden presence of food. Their bodies could no longer withstand this after months of famine😢
(7/8) Among the deceased were Simon and his sons Jozef Alexander and Maurice.😢
A Jewish cemetery was created behind the Christian cemetery in Tröbiz, where they were burried.
But in 1950 the remains of Simon, Maurice and Joseph Alexander were transferred to the Netherlands.
(8/8) In Tröbitz a monument has been created for the victims of 'Der verloren zug' or 'the lost train'.
On a wall the names of all victims are listed
Jozef Alexander, Maurice and Simon we will remember you! 😢💔🕯️✡️
(1/n) 127 years ago Truus Meijer was born on 21-04-1896. This time not a victim of the Nazi's but a brave woman who stood up against them.
And by doing that she saved more than 10.000 Jewish children.
And the sad thing is that so many people, even Dutch, never heard of her.
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(2/n) Truus, who was born as Geertruida, was married to Franciscus Wijsmuller and so became known as Truus Wijsmuller.
It starts in 1933, when Hitler came to power. She travels to Germany to pick up relatives of Jewish acquaintances.
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(3/n) 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.
November 1938, the British government decides they will take Jewish children for temporary stay
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@AuschwitzMuseum (1/n) This little 4 year 'old' boy was the brother of Eline Regina, born 04-09-1934 (8yr) and Frits Herman, born 18-11-1935 (7yr). They were the children of Salomon born 21-03-1910 and Mirjam Sara nee Micheels, born 02-11-1908.
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@AuschwitzMuseum (2/n) The family used to live in the Hague.
Parents, Max and Eline were in Westerbork from 25-09-1942 and were 3 days later deported to Auschwitz. They were most likely all gassed on arrival.😢
Frits Herman was not deported on that day.
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@AuschwitzMuseum (3/n) It turned out he was in 'het Apeldoornsche Bos'. This was a Jewish psychiatric institution in the forest near Apeldoorn. For a long time it was thought that the Nazis would leave the patients in Apeldoorn undisturbed and therefore would not deport them to Westerbork.
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(1/n) In 1998 this picture was found when a picture frame was changed. It had been hidden there 60 years ago.
It shows 22 children, in the age of 4-17 year. It was made behind the synagogue in Deventer. Some children are wearing the dreadful star.
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(2/n) The photo came into the hands of Mr Meier de Leeuw. He is Jewish and was a child before the war and knew some of these children. He himself was already in hiding, otherwise he would have been on the photo
Meier started an investigation to find out more about the children
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(3/n) Finally it turned out that the photo must have been taken around the Jewish New Year (Rosh
Hashanah) that fell on September 12/13 in 1942. The children celebrated this day in the synagogue and youth shul.
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@AuschwitzMuseum (1/n) It was 07-05-1934 when Leon (called Lonnie) Zwaap was born. He was the son of Salomon, born 03-01-1906 and Esther Jeannette Zwaap nee Philipse, born 15-02-1913. On 08-05-1936 Lonnie's brother Edward David (called Eddy) was born.
Both children were born in Hilversum.
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@AuschwitzMuseum (2/n) Salomon was a doctor while Esther was a childcare worker and a singer. They still lived in Hilversum.
In 1942 Salomon was a representative of the Jewish Council. This is probably why he was the first to be arrested.
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@AuschwitzMuseum (3/n) The first document shows that he was in Vught from 17-02-1943. The Jewish Council card shows the date 12-02-1943 with the handwritten text 'uit gevangenis' or 'out of prison'.
But he probably was in Westerbork somewhere in February.
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@AuschwitzMuseum (1/n) Lia (📷1&2) was the daughter of Julius, who was a baker, born 15-01-1895 and Alice, born 14-05-1895. She had an older sister Rita, born 05-12-1924.
Julius was already deported to Nisko in Poland before the girls and there mother were deported to Theresienstadt.
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@AuschwitzMuseum (2/n) Lia, and her mother and sister were in Theresienstadt from 30-06-1943. And on 19-10-1944 they were all 3 deported to Auschwitz.
Rita was best friends with another Jewish girl, Vera Rosenzweig. Vera was in Theresienstadt from 30-09-1942, so before the Feiners.
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@AuschwitzMuseum (3/n) And while she was there Rita wrote her a card.
It says:
Hope to see you all, with all friends. I miss you all, and would rather be with you. Luckily I have a lot of work in the hospital. Stay healthy and greetings to all.
9 months later Rita was also in Theresienstadt.
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(1/n) Andrée Geulen was a teacher in a school in Brussels. One day, summer of 1942 some of her students arrived at school with the compulsory yellow star on their clothes. Until that time Geulen hadn't paid attention to the anti-Jewish measures and the persecution of the Jews.
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(2/n) Having her students marked and humiliated in this way enraged Geulen, and she instructed the entire class – Jews and non-Jews alike - to wear aprons to school, so as to cover the yellow stars.
This first close encounter with the persecution of the Jews convinced...
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(3/n) ..Andrée that she had to act. While continuing to teach, she became an activist in the Comité de Défence des Juifs (Jewish Defense Committee), where Jews (like Ida Sterno) and non-Jews joined forces to hide and save Jewish children.
📷Andree with Ida Sterno
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