04.05.1943 | #OTD Postcard from Leo to his dear boys from the ghost train with 1187 people of @kampwesterbork to death camp #Sobibor: "I wish you all the best. I'll be brave and I'll always be thinkig of you. Your father is always in your hearts." Who was Leo?👇🏼/1
Leo is a true Maastricht native and has 2 brothers and 1 sister. Louis goes by @Kamp_Amersfoort to @AuschwitzMuseum. Max, like Leo, is murdered in #Sobibor. Tilly survives the war, as does his mother Rosalie. /2
Single father Leo has 2 sons from his marriage to the non-Jewish Getrud Meuer (div 1937). He owns a textile store on the Grote Gracht in #Maastricht. Emiel lives with his sister's in-laws & neighbours of his store, Butcher Drielsma at Grote Gracht 23 and Jakie with his mother./3
On August 25, 1942, Leo, like the befriended Isaack Family, had to report to police in #Maastricht before 4 p.m. and was arrested for the 1st time and taken to Westerbork.
From there the Isaacks are immediately forwarded to Auschwitz and murdered. /4
After just one week, Leo is released from @kampwesterbork because of the care for his 2 sons and returns home to #Maastricht.
On November 11, 1942 Leo is arrested for the 2nd time after presumably being betrayed by an NSB member. /5
On May 4, 1943, Leo is one of 1187 deportees who go on the 10th transport to Sobibor. Before leaving the Netherlands at Nieuweschans, he throws his last greeting from the train to keep his children hopeful. He probably knows better about his fate.... /6
On May 7, 1943, Leo Salomon was murdered in #Sobibor extermination camp immediately upon arrival.... leaving behind 1 million kisses for his 2 boys. /7
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01.07.2024 | From KetiKoti to Sobibor.
On July 1, 1863, the grandparents of Willij and Henriette Cambridge, William Cambridge and Emilia Sniphout witnessed the abolition of slavery in Suriname. 80 years later, in July 1943, Willij and Henriette were murdered in Sobibor.👇🏼1/8
2/8 On July 1, 1873 the obligation expired for William, Emilia, Clasina and Palmyra to work as contract laborers on the Petersburg sugar plantation, where they were enslaved until 1863. The English plantation owner Sir John Young had given them the surname Cambridge.
3/8 The owner of Petersburg Plantation was Sir John Young, Baron Lisgar, 2nd governor general of Canada. Although slavery in the UK was made illegal when the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 came into force in 1834, Sir John Young continued to profit from it in Suriname.
22.06.1933 | Cäcil David Speijer, a 9-y/o boy from Harlingen was murdered in #Sobibor. His parents had a clothing store, on the corner of Heiligeweg/Grote Kerkstraat. A last postcard from Speijer family arrived in Harlingen with the text, "This is not ending well."
👇🏼 1/5
2/5 Cäcil had one older brother, Elkan. Together they attended school in Harlingen. From September 1, 1942, the German occupiers required them to attend the Jewish School in Leeuwarden.
3/5 Michiel Speijer, called "Chellie" in Harlingen, married German-born Hanna Schulenklopper on Feb. 27, 1929, in Norden, Germany. The couple lived next door to the store with their two sons: Elkan Aron and Cäcil David. They were well known and loved in Harlingen.
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.