This book uncovers the history of a group of Jewish workers and merchants in the Amsterdam diamond industry during the Holocaust. They and their families were exempt from deportation for a long time, but were eventually deported to Bergen-Belsen. In the end, almost all of the men perished, and the women barely survived slave-labour. Their children were left to die in the camp, but were miraculously saved by the intervention of a Jewish Polish woman, ‘nurse Luba’. The main sources on which this book is based are video testimonies of the surviving members of this group, personal interviews, minutes of interviews taken down in shorthand shortly after the war, and personal documents such as letters, archival documents, and autobiographical books.
Author(s): Bettine Siertsema
Series: The Holocaust and its Contexts
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 221
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
Chapter 1: A Brief Overview of the History
The Diamond Exemption
Bergen-Belsen and Beyond
Chapter 2: Sources
Oral History
Primary Sources
Chapter 3: Amsterdam, 1940–1943: ‘A Rather False Sense of Security’
‘That Can Never Happen Here’
The Beginning of the Occupation
The Jewish Council
The Diamond Sperre
Hiding or Not?
Chapter 4: Westerbork and Vught: ‘It Was a Nice Camp, but Despair Played a Big Role Too’
Arrested
In the Hollandsche Schouwburg
Vught
Arrival in Westerbork
Daily Life
Work
The Children
Escape Opportunities
Temporary Return to Amsterdam
Transport
Chapter 5: Bergen-Belsen: ‘Everything Fell by the Wayside’
Camp Life
Social and Spiritual Life
Barrack 17
The Background of the Privileges
The Privileges Revoked
The Departure of the Men
The Asscher and Soep Families
Chapter 6: Sachsenhausen: ‘You’re Reduced to Nothing. You’re Worth Less Than a Dog’
Siemens
Death March
Liberated
Jack Engelander
Chapter 7: Beendorf: ‘It Is a Miracle That I Survived’
Kapos and Female Guards
Work in the Salt Mines
Health and Hygiene
From Beendorf to Eidelstedt and Hamburg
Chapter 8: The Children and Nurse Luba: ‘Just Bring All Those Little Children to Me’
Abandoned
Luba
Food for Children in a Starving Camp
Interactions
Contacts Outside the Children’s Barrack
Surrounded by Death and Disease
Chapter 9: Liberation: ‘I Can Still See the Horror on the Faces of the English’
Food!
Recovery
Retaliation
Return to the Netherlands
Goodbye to Nurse Luba
Sweden
Illnesses
Chapter 10: Post-War Lives: ‘Crying Doesn’t Help’
Reception
Education and Profession
Emigration
Traumatised
Jack, Betty, and Robby Engelander
Chapter 11: The 1995 Reunion: ‘A Time to Heal’
Preparations
The Reunion
After the Reunion
Chapter 12: Testimony: A Valuable Yet Tricky Source
Children’s Memories
Core Memory
Communal Memory
The First-Person Narrator Centre Stage
Intensification
Ada Bimko and the Other Helpers
In Conclusion
Who’s Who
Bibliography
Online Sources
Visual History Archive (USC Shoah Foundation Institute) Interviews
Presented in Alphabetical Order of Surnames as Used in the VHA Catalogue:
Archival Documents
Index
