Leo Smit was a talented composer, born May 14, 1900 in Amsterdam's Plantage neighborhood. He studied piano and composition at the Amsterdam Conservatory and was the 1st student to graduate cum laude. Smit became a teacher of analysis and harmony at the @ConsAmsterdam /2
On June 28, 1925, his work "Silhouettes" was premiered by the @ConcertgbOrkest. After his military service, he gave up teaching and left for Paris, where he developed his own style and wrote successful pieces, such as the Harp Concerto with Rosa Spier. /3
In 1933 he married Lientje de Vries and she followed him to Paris. After living in Brussels for another year, they settled back in Amsterdam in 1937, where Leo began giving private lessons in piano, theory and composition. /4
The anti-Jewish measures gradually worsened. In 1941, Jewish musicians were no longer allowed to perform in public. Non-Jewish students gradually stayed away from Leo Smit, and he was forced to move to Judenviertel II in the Transvaal neighborhood in Dec. 1942. /5
Despite the difficult situation, he continued to compose; his last composition was the Sonata for flute and piano, which he completed in February 1943.
Smit had at the very end been able to take his compositions and sketchbooks to safety at various addresses. /6
Sonata for Flute and Piano by Leo Smit (1943) /7
At the end of March 1943, Leo and Lientje were arrested and taken to the Hollandsche Schouwburg. On the 9th of April 1943, they were taken to Westerbork transit camp. With the 9th transport on April 27, 1943, they were deported to the Sobibor extermination camp. /8
His student Frits Zuiderweg gave the archive and the scores after the war to Leo´s sister Nora Coppenhagen-Smit, who had survived in hiding. Since 1996, the @LeoSmitSticht has endeavored to continue the work of Leo Smit. /9
His music lives on as a memory of a talented and promising composer whose life was prematurely ended by the Holocaust. Let us continue to play his music and remember his life and his contribution to Dutch music history. /10
01.06.1910 l Leon Felhendler was 1 of the 2 leaders of the uprising at the #Sobibor on Oct. 14, 1943. #OTD he was born in 1910 in Turobin (Pl) to an Orthodox Jewish family. He arrived in Sobibor in early November 1942. Who was this underground leader of Sobibor? 👇🏼1/8
2/8 Leon Felhendler was born in Turobin, Poland. His father became Chief Rabbi in Żółkiewka in 1924. Married Toba Wajnberg on May 9, 1935, and had a son, Chaim Szymon, on October 20, 1935. Limited records make it unclear about their second child.
3/8 Leon Felhendler's early life shrouded in mystery due to limited Żółkiewka records. Possible miller, just as his father-in-law. Education and pre-war work unclear. Likely received religious training from his rabbi father.
11.05.1943 | Jozef Wins was one of the just 18 Dutch survivors of Sobibor. He was selected along with 79 other men upon arrival on May 14, 1943 and was sent to a work camp in Dorohucza. Jozef Wins was the only survivor of the 11th Transport of 1446 deportees.👇🏼1/10
2/10 Jozef Wins was born in Amsterdam in 1915 as a son of Isaäc Wins (1884-1942) and Bloeme Leeda (1892-1942). He had 2 brothers, Samuel (1913-1919) and Salomon (1930-1943), and 2 sisters, Rachel (1918) and Sophia (1927-1942). Rachel and Jozef both survived the war.
3/10 Jozef went into hiding during the war. On March 12, 1943, he was betrayed. He was first locked up in the prison on Amstelveenseweg in Amsterdam and later transported to Westerbork as a "criminal case".
07.12.1918 | Ellen de Swarte-Sanders was born in Amsterdam, as the daughter of Herman Sanders and Sara Maijkels. She had a twin sister, Vera, and a younger sister, Henny (1923).
Imagine how Ellen and her husband Ben must have felt during their deportation to #Sobibor on June 8, 1943. They were parents of a 3-month-old girl,who was taken away by the neighbor just minutes before their arrest on May 26, 1943. The baby survived. 👇🏼1/10
2/10 Herman Sanders was born in Wildervank and after finishing his studies he worked at the Polak company in Groningen. Polak is the inventor of the lemonade syrup Ranja. In 1901 he became a representative for the company in Amsterdam and from 1916 he was a member of the board of directors.
Herman married Sara Maijkels on June 26, 1917. They had three daughters. At the end of 1931, shortly after his sixtieth birthday, David Polak retired from the daily management of the company. Herman Sanders was the director after this until December 31, 1940, when he was forced to resign by the Germans.
Herman held many administrative positions during his professional life. In Groningen the family lived in the Midsummer villa on Verlengde Hereweg.
Herman, Sara and their youngest daughter Henny were murdered in Auschwitz on January 28, 1944. Vera survived the war.
3/10 After her school exams, Ellen returned to Amsterdam in 1938 to study at the “school for social work”. At a discussion evening, Ellen met Ben de Swarte.
Within six months, Ben and Ellen were engaged. Ben was the youngest in the family of Abraham and Mietje De Swarte-Klepman. Benjamin Ruben de Swarte studied at the University of Amsterdam from 1931 to 1937. On June 14, 1935, he passed the doctoral exam in commercial sciences (economics) and on December 2, 1937, he passed the doctoral exam in law. Ben started his own accounting firm from his parental home in 1938.
In late September 1943, a transport from Minsk arrived in #Sobibor. Among them was Alexander 'Sasha' Pechersky, who survived the selection. His presence gave a new boost to the escape plans of Leon Felhendler.
Alexander Pechersky, son of a Jewish lawyer, was born Feb. 22, 1909, in Kremenchuk, Russian Empire (now Ukraine).
Without Sasha Pechersky, the October 14, 1943 uprising in #Sobibor would not have happened.
Who was Pechersky? 🧵1/16 👇🏼
2/16 Sasha had a one brother Boris (1907) and two sisters, Faina (1906) and Zinaida/Zina (1921). At home, his parents spoke Yiddish. In 1915, his family fled to Rostov-on-Don, where he eventually worked as an electrician at a locomotive repair factory.
3/16 3/16 Pechersky was fond of theater and worked in a theater studio, where he met his future wife, Lyudmila Vasilyeyna. In 1933 they married.
Today we celebrate the life of Regina Zielinski. She is 1 of only 58 known survivors of #Sobibor death camp. She grew up as Riwka Feldman in Siedliczcze, in eastern Poland. She survived for 10 months in Sobibor. In 1949, she emigrated to Australia, where she died in 2014. 🧵👇🏼1/9
2/9 Regina Zielenski, born Riwka Feldman, was forced to move to the Siedliszcze ghetto on 18 May 1941 along with her parents, Golda and Josef Feldman, her sister Fradele, 19, and 3 brothers: Max, 21, Theodore, 13, and Paul, 10. On 22 October 1942, they were all sent to the Staw labour camp. Crammed into horse-drawn carts and guarded by SS men, Regina arrived in Sobibor just before Christmas 1942 with about 800 Polish Jews from the Staw-Nowosiulki. On arrival, an officer asked for young women who could knit. Her mother pushed her forward and she was 1 of the 11 selected. She was sent to the barracks to untangle clothes and knit socks for the German army.
On arrival at the camp, she heard her little brother say, "Let's say goodbye to the night, because we won't see the sun rise again." Later she was put to work in the laundry and she also had to clean and sort ammunition.
3/9 On October 14, 1943, the prisoners in Sobibor revolted. Under gunfire Regina ran through the cut wire fence and escaped into the forest. After three days, she felt it safe enough to return to Siedliszcze. Regina Wojciszyn gave Riwka her birth certificate and thus a new identity
Imagine how Ellen and her husband Ben must have felt during their transport to #Sobibor of June 8, 1943? They were parents of a 3-month-old baby who was taken away by the neighbor just minutes before their arrest on May 26, 1943. Ellen and Ben were deported to Sobibor without their daughter on the so-called children's transport. Tsiwja survived as Carla. At Carla's (@Tsiwja) request, we share the story of her murdered birth parents in a thread 🧵👇🏼1/11
2/11 Ellen was born in Amsterdam, as the daughter of Herman Sanders and Sara Maijkels. She lived in her childhood with her twin sister Vera and her younger sister Henny (1923) in De Lairessestraat in Amsterdam. In 1931 the family moved to Groningen due to her father's work. After her final exams, she returned to Amsterdam in 1938 to study at the “school for social work” in the Pieter de Hoochstraat.
3/11 Herman Sanders was born in Wildervank and after finishing his studies he worked at the Polak company in Groningen. Polak is the inventor of the lemonade syrup Ranja. In 1901 he became a representative for the company in Amsterdam and from 1916 he was a member of the board of directors. Herman married Sara Maijkels on June 26, 1917. They had three daughters.
At the end of 1931, shortly after his sixtieth birthday, David Polak retired from the daily management of the company. Herman Sanders was director after this until December 31, 1940, when he was forced to resign by the Germans.
Herman held many administrative positions during his professional life. In Groningen the family lived in the Midsummer villa on Verlengde Hereweg.
Herman, Sara and their youngest daughter Henny were murdered in Auschwitz on January 28, 1944. Vera survived the war.