Anne Frank and her family were held for some time in the Strafbarakken, the section of the camp reserved for “criminals” – a prison within a prison. Their crime had been going into hiding. They were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau via the last train that left Westerbork for Auschwitz on 3 September 1944. Of the 1019 people on that train, more than half were immediately sent to the gas chambers, including all the children under the age of 15. As Anne was 15 years and 3 months at the time, she must have been one of the youngest to survive that initial selection.

The national memorial at Westerbork, constructed in the ’70s, displays a watchtower and a bunker flanking a section of a railway track whose distorted rails have been twisted upwards at one end. Another memorial on the site displays 102,000 clay bricks, apparently arranged in the shape of the Netherlands when seen from above. Each brick represents one of the Dutch Holocaust victims who passed through Westerbork. Most of the bricks have Stars of David on them, but 245 have flames because they symbolize the Romani victims, the best known of whom was Settela Steinbach. Settela’s harrowed face peering through the door of one of the carriages of a train that was about to leave Westerbork became a symbol of the Nazi persecution of Dutch Jews, though it was discovered in 1994 that she was in fact Sinti. She was gassed in Auschwitz at the age of 9.

Settela Steinbach (archive image)

Now you can own a copy of the DVD recording of the Opening Night in Amsterdam, produced by Documentary Film-maker Erga Netz.

Go to the Indie GoGo link below to help us continue to bring this important performance to other communities across the globe.

http://igg.me/p/14043?a=64586&i=shlk

http://www.indiegogo.com/Westerbork-Serenade-the-stage-play?a=64586&i=addr

Anne Frank –

The Book, The Life, The Afterlife

By Francine Prose

Atlantic Books – £16.99

I’ve often found myself contemplating the many similarities between Anne Frank and my Dutch mother. Not only are they strikingly similar in appearance and born a mere two years apart from one another, they also spent their teenage years growing up in occupied Amsterdam during the 1940s. As a result, they both garnered a profound, resilient, all round deeply entrenched and enthralled spirit – the likes of which to this day, remains as equally priceless, as it does beyond explanation and comprehension.

Luckily for my mother, and eventually her four offspring, there the similarities fundamentally end.

Nine months before the Allies liberated Holland in May 1945, my mother and her entire family were in the throes of impending starvation – otherwise known as the Hunger Winter of 1944 – while the fifteen-year-old Anne Frank was deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, where she died shortly thereafter of starvation and typhoid. That she wrote a diary that has since been translated into countless languages – as well as deciphered and deconstructed the entire world over – has ensured that Anne Frank, two simple words of one syllable each, is almost as renowned and recognised throughout the planet, as that of Jesus, Shakespeare, and, ironically, the deranged lunatic, ultimately responsible for her death, Hitler. And like these icons of history, Anne Frank too, has had many papers, essays, dissertations and books written about her life and her work, of which this most recent edition by Francine Prose, is a rather unmitigating, if not exhilarating read.

Anne Frank – The Book, the Life, the Afterlife is a success on a number of fronts, most notably that of an introductory persuasion. For those not really in the know but who’d like to be, these 277 pages serve as a top-notch, clearly defined prolegomenon, to that of a life which warrants as much study and crucial understanding, as those mentioned above; even if only to attempt coming to terms with our ever changing selves: ‘’Trying to remember the psychological and spiritual contortions we put ourselves through, when we were young, is as difficult as trying to summon back our astonishment at how quickly our bodies were changing […]. Perhaps more than any other book, Anne’s diary reminds us of what that bewilderment and yearning were like. Meanwhile the diary entries become a sort of mirror in which teenagers male and female, can see themselves – a capsule description of the alienation, the loneliness, and the torrents of free-floating grief that define adolescence in twentieth-century Western culture.’’

Just like many musicians who have addressed the ever recurring/changing, manifestations of youth over the years – such as The Who’s Pete Townshend, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain (who, unlike the book’s protagonist, struggled with who he was, who he became, and as such, embraced self-loathing to such a degree that it killed him) and more recently, The Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner – Anne Frank was evidently as forthright in her writing(s), as she was in her moral obligation(s) in the sharing thereof.

Is it any wonder that her ‘’diary is among the most frequently banned or challenged books in American libraries and schools?’’

Challenging yet wonderfully precise, unsentimental yet woefully delicate, I’m hard pressed to think of any other book I’d be sooner be reading, as yet another year comes to yet another close.

David Marx
www.davidmarx.co.uk

http://soundcloud.com/westerborkserenade-1/nov-13-to-17-2010

They were met by Alan Erlich (the nephew of Max Erlich, the main character David plays in The Westerbork Serenade), Jack Weil (his parents met at Kamp Westerbork), his wife Astrid (a school principal), and documentary film-maker Erga Netz.

They went on a tour of the Museum now on the original site and walked the now memorialized grounds of Kamp Westerbork, filmed by Erga and documented with audio recorder by Rik (who has a lot of editing ahead of him on a feature-length special podcast about the day).

Afterward they all traveled to Drenthe for an appearance on RTV’s PS show. David was interviewed and then performed a bit of dialogue and the title song of The Westerbork Serenade.

A long, compelling and interesting day.

http://www.rtvdrenthe.nl/tv/PS

Rik and Dave 11-5-10 by westerborkserenade-1

2pm, Friday November 5, 2010 at Odd Duck Studio.

Advance TIX available at 206-679-3271 or at

Tickets: $20, $15 TPS Members & Sandbox Artist Collective, $10 Students/Seniors/Military/Union/Veterans/Cornish Alum, Faculty and Staff, FREE for SAG, AEA and AFTRA Members.

ABOUT THE PLAY: Because of anxiety over increased immigration, in 1939 the Dutch government set up a camp near the town of Westerbork to hold the stream of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. After their invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, the Nazis turned Lager Westerbork into a transit camp which funneled more than 100,000 Jews to their doom in the eastern camps.

Westerbork was not a death camp. It was crowded and food scarce, but one could survive there. Westerbork even had a hospital, work-shops, schools and a warehouse offering goods previously looted from other Jews. The German speaking Jewish inmates ran administration of the camp. The SS commandant’s pet project was a weekly cabaret show at Westerbork. It featured top Jewish entertainers from Germany and Holland. If one was in the show, one was “exempt” from transport- temporarily. By the end of the war, however, most of the performers from Westerbork were also sent to their deaths in eastern camps, joining the eventual six million who died.

Mr. Natale seamlessly portrays more than 15 characters; including German director, Max Ehrlich, actress Camilla Spira, Commandant Gemmeker and the beloved Dutch singing duo, Johnny and Jones.

Natale developed The Westerbork Serenade after much research as well as interviews with survivors. He dynamically incorporates period sketches, songs and accounts to make the audience acutely feel what it is to perform for one’s life.

For more info about the tour see:

http://www.xavierahollander.com/westerbork

REVIEWS:

“Natale conveys with economy and depth a gripping, true life story and the people caught up in it…he is actor enough to carry it alone.”

–Misha Berson, Seattle Times

“Natale is an extremely versatile performer… With its jaunty song and dance numbers, gleaned from the Westerbork repertoire, Natale’s show is particularly unnerving.”

–Joe Adcock, Seattle Post – Intelligencer

“The Westerbork Serenade is not only… a Holocaust story about Jews and Nazis, but a cautionary tale on the destructiveness of prejudice and racism.”

–Peter A. Klein, JT News, Seattle

PRESS RELEASE

WHAT THE AUDIENCES SAY: “Great script, written by the performer. Natale has amazing prowess. Very powerful!”

“Tremendous acting and tough material very well done.”

ABOUT DAVID NATALE: David Natale began acting at the Cleveland Playhouse at age ten. He has a BA in Theatre Studies from Yale and an MFA in Acting from the Old Globe in
San Diego. David has been seen on Guiding Light, Law and Order and Sex and The City; as well as films: Zoolander, Company Man and People I Know. Some other historical characters Mr. Natale has recently portrayed are: John Lennon in the 2006 world premiere of Just Like Starting Over at Seattle Public Theater and Eugene V. Debs in Howard Zinn’s.

And in Seattle, it’s double the cool factor since October is Arts Crush!

This year, ETC is sponsoring an encore run, October 21-23 at 8pm, of The Westerbork Serenade written and performed by David Natale.  Directed by Gin Hammond. Produced by Rik Deskin. This show originally ran in repertory with Hamlet in 2008 and was a critical success as well as a Seattle Times Footlight Award Winner for Solo Show that same year.

David Natale and Producer Rik Deskin will be traveling with this show to The Netherlands for six performances in Amsterdam and Den Haag November 9-30.

David and Rik have raised $1215 towards their $7000 goal to cover expenses for travel, meals and lodging. Donations can be made of any amount with a credit card, check or cash at the theater or by phone at 206-679-3271.

A ONE-MAN SHOW WITH A CAST OF THOUSANDS!

This November, Seattle actor and playwright, David Natale brings a seldom-remembered story of the Holocaust in Holland with his award winning one-man show: The Westerbork Serenade. Because of anxiety over increased immigration, in 1939 the Dutch government set up a camp near the town of Westerbork to hold the stream of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany which was then turned into a transit station after the Nazi invasion.  The SS commandant’s pet project was a weekly cabaret show at Westerbork. It featured top Jewish entertainers from Germany and Holland. If one was in the show, one was “exempt” from transport- temporarily. By the end of the war, however, most of the performers from Westerbork were also sent to their deaths in eastern camps, joining the eventual six million who died.

Mr. Natale seamlessly portrays more than 15 characters; including German director, Max Ehrlich, actress Camilla Spira, Commandant Gemmeker and the beloved Dutch singing duo, Johnny and Jones.

Thursday, October 21 at 8pm is the Free Night of Theater performance. Tickets are still available! If Will Call Tickets are not picked up by 7:55pm, they will be released.

FREE TIX for tonight’s performance and Advance Tickets for Friday, October 22 & Saturday, October 23 are available by phone at 206-679-3271 or online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/132853

$20 General Admission

$15 TPS (Theatre Puget Sound) Members*, and Sandbox Artist Collective Members.

$10 Students*, Seniors, Military*, Veterans, Union Members*, Cornish Alumni, Faculty* and Staff*.

Free for AEA*, SAG* & AFTRA* Members

*Must have current Member or I.D. card.

The memorial site at Westerbork

These words in a news article caught my attention:

“Between July 1942 and September 1944, 93 prisoner trains left the camp for Auschwitz and Sobibor in Poland, Bergen-Belsen in Germany, and Theresienstadt in what is now the Czech Republic.”

Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was a death camp for Jews and other prisoners; upon arrival, the Jews were “selected” for labor or the gas chamber. Sobibor was a death camp for Jews, and all except a few, who were chosen to work in the camp, were killed immediately in gas chambers.

Anne Frank was buried in a mass grave at Bergen-Belsen

Bergen-Belsen was a completely different kind of camp; it was a holding camp for Jews who wanted to go to Palestine; they were made available as exchange prisoners for German citizens being held in British and American prisons. Theresienstadt was originally set up as a camp for “prominent Jews” and for the Jews in Czechoslovakia where the camp was located.  The Czech Jews were sent later to Auschwitz-Birkenau where men, women and children lived together for awhile in a “Family Camp.”

There were no gas chambers at Bergen-Belsen, nor at Theresienstadt.  This means that there must have been an initial selection at Westerbork; some of the Dutch and German Jews at Westerbork were sent to the Birkenau and Sobibor death camps while others were selected for Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt. This seems to go against the Nazi policy of genocide of the Jews, which was called “The Final Solution.”

How were these selections made at Westerbork?  Apparently, the Jews who were selected to live were either the rich and famous, who were called “prominent Jews,” or Jews who were Zionists who wanted to settle in Palestine.  The prominent Jews included Jews who had served honorably in the German Army in World War I.  The Czech Jews were allowed to live for awhile in Theresienstadt and later in the Family Camp at Birkenau, but they were eventually put through another selection process and those who were not capable of work were gassed and burned at Birkenau.

There was a typhus epidemic at Bergen-Belsen; 35,000 prisoners died of typhus in only two months, including Anne Frank and her sister.

Women peeling potatoes at Bergen-Belsen, April 28, 1945

Here is a quote from the news article:

Eighty-nine year old Jules Schelvis was 22 when he was sent to Westerbork with his 20-year-old wife Rachel.

“We didn’t think we would stay very long,” he told AFP. “Many people tried to be admitted to hospital to delay their deportation. We pretended to have stomach pains or headache.”

But six days after their arrival, the couple’s names were read out from a list and he and his wife were ordered to board a train for the Sobibor death camp in Poland, where Rachel Schelvis was killed in a gas chamber.

Jules Schelvis survived because he was apparently chosen to work inside the Sobibor camp.  Perhaps he was one of the 600 prisoners who escaped during an uprising.

Westerbork was originally built by the Dutch in 1939 as a prison for  Jews who had fled Nazi Germany and entered the Netherlands illegally.  Otto Frank was one of the  Jews who had to escape from Germany because he had been indicted for bank fraud. However, he was never caught by the Dutch police and was able to set up a business in Amsterdam under someone else’s name.

The Westerbork camp was taken over by the Nazis in 1942 and it then became a transit camp where Jews were held until they could be transported elsewhere.

Here is a quote from this source:

Between 1942 and 1944, 93 trains deported more than a 100,000 Dutch Jews and Romany. Sixty-eight of those trains went to Auschwitz. The others went to Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt, AFP reported.

There were 140,000 Jews in Holland before the war, of which 102,000 were murdered by the Nazis. Aside from Anne Frank, a second Jewish girl who kept a diary of her earlier imprisonment passed through Westerbork on the way to her death.

In the late 1930s, the government in The Hague was worried about the influence thousands of Jewish refugees who had fled to Holland would have in the cities and towns. Many German Jews caught by the authorities had been sent back to Germany, but still more came.

The government decided therefore to house Jewish refugees who entered the country illegally in a new compound built on marsh land at a ‘safe’ distance from the local town of Westerbork in Drenthe in 1939.

Hundreds of refugees were living in the camp by the time the German Army invaded on 10 May 1940. The inmates had limited freedom until 1942 when the facility officially became a transit camp.

On July 1, 1942, the German Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) took over control. The new commander, Erich Deppner, caused a riot when organising the first transport. He included children without their parents and women who happened to be standing in line for admittance to make up his quota of 1,000 deportees.

In October, Obersturmfuhrer Albert Konrad Gemmeker took command of the camp and oversaw the systematic deportation of 100,000 Jews, 55,000 of whom went to Auschwitz, according to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust.

On the 60th anniversary it is important to bear in mind that much of the dirty work was not done directly by the Germans.

Gemmeker, who was jailed for 10 years after the war, left the day-to-day running of the camp in the hands of some of the inmates. A subdivision of the Jewish police (Judischer Ordnungsdienst) arranged the transports and maintained order. Many Jews, like Anne Frank, ended up in the camp because they were betrayed by Dutch people.

There were 20,000 Jews in the Netherlands who managed to hide from the Nazis throughout the war, according to the Museum at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.  As the war progressed, food became scarce all over Europe.  Food was rationed, even in America.  The Jews in hiding had fake ration cards which the people who helped them used to buy food for them.  By 1944, when all of Europe was starving, the Dutch people began to resent the Jews in hiding.

One of the saddest things that I read in The Diary of Anne Frank was that the Dutch people were saying in 1944 that they didn’t want the Jews back after the war.  They were angry that the Jews were living on food bought with illegal ration cards.

De gure wind slaat tegen de doorzichtige flappen van de rechthoekige tent op het terrein van voormalig concentratiekamp Westerbork. In het middengedeelte van de rechthoekige tent staat voor ongeveer 50 mensen een blond meisje van elf jaar de namen van de familie Wurms-Barend voor te lezen. Met haar elf jaar is ze de jongste van de vrijwilligers die deelnemen aan het project ‘102.000 Namen Lezen. Na het lezen wordt ze door haar familie opgevangen.

Op de vraag wat het meisje van het lezen vind, antwoordt zij: “Spannend en soms moeilijk. Het was moeilijk om de namen van jonge kinderen voor te lezen”. Ook haar moeder is erg blij met het feit dat haar dochter meedoet met het project. “Het is erg leerzaam voor de kinderen en erg goed om op deze manier bezig te zijn met de herdenking. Waar herdenkingen vaak heel statisch zijn, zijn de kinderen nu interactief bezig en ontwikkelen zij zelf een goed beeld van wat zich toentertijd afspeelde.”

Het meisje vertegenwoordigt samen met haar klas een basisschool uit Noord-Holland. De school is onderdeel van een speciaal gedeelte van het herinneringsproject. In dat gedeelte besteedt uit elke provincie één school aandacht aan een kind uit dezelfde provincie dat slachtoffer was tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Op de afsluitende dag van ‘102.000 Namen Lezen’ presenteren de basisscholen uit Noord-Holland en Zeeland onderdelen. Ze worden daarbij geholpen door kampoverlevende Eva Weyl en NPS-presentatrice Lisa Wade.

“We moeten ervoor zorgen dat de namen gezegd worden, zodat ze herinnerd blijven”, aldus Lisa Wade. Voor haar heeft de dag ook een ‘symbolische betekenis’, omdat familie van haar schoonvader in concentratiekampen gezeten heeft.

Aan het begin van de middag is de Nederlandse pers massaal toegestroomd om de laatste namen vast te leggen. Als Fia Polak samen met Frits Barend aan de laatste namen begint, start ook het kwartet strijkers onder begeleiding van een piano. Het doet denken aan de strijkers op de zinkende Titanic. Maar waar de Titanic zonk, daar blijft de samenleving overeind. Lisa Wade sluit af: “Door het houden van herdenkingen als deze kunnen we hen niet vergeten, zodat het niet nog een keer kan gebeuren.”

16-2 8.25 am. in eerste instantie.
vannacht heeft het weer gesneeuwd. voor me zie ik een mager mens over de straat schuifelen. met haar benen dicht bij elkaar. alsof ze in haar broek heeft gepoept. waarschijnlijk loop ik zoals haar. ich bin wie du.
mensen immiteren mensen om te voorkomen dat ze vallen, opvallen, omvallen, uitglijden.
ik heb gisteren de helft van een dialoog herhaald in een gesprek met een collega. ik merk dat het werkt. het lijkt of mensen me beter begrijpen/ accepteren als ik niet mijn eigen woorden gebruik. het is veilig. ze hebben hun waarde al eens bewezen. die woorden, in andere dialogen of groepsgesprekken. mij zeggen ze niet zoveel. het is meer mijn angst voor de ander die maakt dat ik ze gebruik dan dat ik ze waardeer om hun inhoud. als andere mensen dit nou ook hebben (dat ze woorden gebruiken, zinnen, die ze hebben overgenomen van anderen uit andere gesprekken) zou het zomaar kunnen zijn dat mensen maar wat zeggen zonder dat ze de inhoud van het gezegde nog kennen.
"ze weten niet wat ze zeggen" hoor ik mezelf wel eens als verwijt naar de mensen die niet achter hun verkondigde waarheden lijken te staan.
dogma’s en geleuter gaan eenzelfde weg. het zijn dezelfde woorden. het zijn dezelfde monden die worden aangestuurd door identieke breinen. het is dezelfde overlevingsdrang. de wil om begrepen te worden, geaccepteerd te worden. doe als ik en je zult zijn als ik. praat me na, denk en dicht zoals de rest en je zult succesvol zijn. vervangbaar zijn. dat wel. want je neemt een plek in, in ons midden en er is ruimte genoeg. we zullen je ook niet missen als je er niet meer bent.
Op een dag zul je er niet meer zijn. Dat heet sterfelijkheid.

16 februari. 9.15 AM. In tweede instantie
Ik loop al een maand of twee acht keer per week langs dat ene moment. Het Muiderpoortstationmonument. Enkeltje Westerbork.
Georganiseerd van 3 oktober 1942 tot en met 26 mei 1944. Elfduizend joden.

En na dat moment duurt het voor mij nog even en ik wandel een warm kantoor binnen op weg naar een vers kopje koffie en ervaar het leven van een ambtenaar.

1942- 2010. dezelfde bureaucratie.
gezagsgetrouw gedrag achter een bureau, werk via routines. werk via procedures, gewoontes, hiërarchie.
gestructureerd.
onpersoonlijk, maar accuraat.
max weber.
Denken word je maar moe van.

1942. Het jodenvraagstuk was inmiddels een transportkwestie. Enkeltje Westerbork  is goedkoper dan hetzelfde traject retour.
Wie betaalt bepaalt. Scrupules kun je niet eten.

Enfin, daar denk ik dan aan als ik er langs loop.

Sjaal draait: Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons: Cloud Eyes

“I answered, ‘Yes, of course.’ It seemed perfectly natural to me. I could help these people. They were powerless, they didn’t know where to turn,” she said years later.

This story brought tears to my eyes.

Miep Gies, who along with so many others (and yet not nearly enough) did so much at such great risk, pooh-poohed her incredible heroism.

On that alone, I disagree with her.  What a hero!  This little secretary was as brave as any Navy SEAL.  And may God and all His holy angels rejoice over her today.

By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer Arthur Max, Associated Press Writer

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Miep Gies, the office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers to hide Anne Frank and her family for two years and saved the teenager’s diary not, has died, the Anne Frank Museum said Tuesday. She was 100.

Gies’ Web site reported that she died Monday after a brief illness. The report was confirmed by museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostar, but she gave no details. The British Broadcasting Corp. said she died in a nursing home after suffering a fall last month.

Gies was the last of the few non-Jews who supplied food, books and good cheer to the secret annex behind the canal warehouse where Anne, her parents, sister and four other Jews hid for 25 months during World War II.

After the apartment was raided by the German police, Gies gathered up Anne’s scattered notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer for her return after the war. The diary, which Anne Frank was given on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944.

Gies refused to read the papers, saying even a teenager’s privacy was sacred. Later, she said if she had read them she would have had to burn them because they incriminated the “helpers.”

Anne Frank died of typhus at age 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, just two weeks before the camp was liberated. Gies gave the diary to Anne’s father Otto, the only survivor, who published it in 1947.

After the diary was published, Gies tirelessly promoted causes of tolerance. She brushed aside the accolades for helping hide the Frank family as more than she deserved — as if, she said, she had tried to save all the Jews of occupied Holland.

“This is very unfair. So many others have done the same or even far more dangerous work,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press days before her 100th birthday last February.

“The Diary of Anne Frank” was the first popular book about the Holocaust, and has been read by millions of children and adults around the world in some 65 languages.

For her courage, Gies was bestowed with the “Righteous Gentile” title by the Israeli Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. She has also been honored by the German Government, Dutch monarchy and educational institutions.

Nevertheless, Gies resisted being made a character study of heroism for the young.

“I don’t want to be considered a hero,” she said in a 1997 online chat with schoolchildren.

“Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary.”

Born Hermine Santrouschitz on Feb. 15, 1909 in Vienna, Gies moved to Amsterdam in 1922 to escape food shortages in Austria. She lived with a host family who gave her the nickname Miep.

In 1933, Gies took a job as an office assistant in the spice business of Otto Frank. After refusing to join a Nazi organization in 1941, she avoided deportation to Austria by marrying her Dutch boyfriend, Jan Gies.

As the Nazis ramped up their arrests and deportations of Dutch Jews, Otto Frank asked Gies in July 1942 to help hide his family in the annex above the company’s canal-side warehouse on Prinsengracht 263 and to bring them food and supplies.

“I answered, ‘Yes, of course.’ It seemed perfectly natural to me. I could help these people. They were powerless, they didn’t know where to turn,” she said years later.

Jan and Miep Gies worked with four other employees in the firm to sustain the Franks and four other Jews sharing the annex. Jan secured extra food ration cards from the underground resistance. Miep cycled around the city, alternating grocers to ward off suspicions from this highly dangerous activity.

In her e-mail to the AP last February, Gies remembered her husband, who died in 1993, as one of Holland’s unsung war heroes. “He was a resistance man who said nothing but did a lot. During the war he refused to say anything about his work, only that he might not come back one night. People like him existed in thousands but were never heard,” she wrote.

Touched by Anne’s precocious intelligence and loneliness, Miep also brought Anne books and newspapers while remembering everybody’s birthdays and special days with gifts.

“It seems as if we are never far from Miep’s thoughts,” Anne wrote.

In her own book, “Anne Frank Remembered,” Gies recalled being in the office when the German police, acting on a tip that historians have failed to trace, raided the hide-out in August 1944.

A policeman opened the door to the main office and pointed a revolver at the three employees, telling them to sit quietly. “Bep, we’ve had it,” Gies whispered to Bep Voskuijl.

After the arrests, she went to the police station to offer a bribe for the Franks’ release, but it was too late. On Aug. 8, they were sent to Westerbork, a concentration camp in eastern Holland from where they were later packed into cattle cars and deported to Auschwitz. A few months later, Anne and her sister Margot were transported to Bergen-Belsen.

Two of the helpers, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman, were sent to labor camps, but survived the war.

Around 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands before the 1940-45 Nazi occupation. Of those, 107,000 were deported to Germany and only 5,200 survived. Some 24,000 Jews went into hiding, of which 8,000 were hunted down or turned in.

After the war, Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam and lived with the Gies family until he remarried in 1952. Miep worked for him as he compiled the diary, then devoted herself to talking about the diary and answering piles of letters with questions from around the world.

After Otto Frank’s death in 1980, Gies continued to campaign against Holocaust-deniers and to refute allegations that the diary was a forgery.

She suffered a stroke in 1997 which slightly affected her speech, but she remained generally in good health as she approached her 100th birthday.

Her son Paul Gies said last year she was still receiving “a sizable amount of mail” which she handled with the help of a family friend. She spent her days at the apartment where she lived since 2000 reading two daily newspapers and following television news and talk shows.

Her husband died in 1993. She is survived by her son and three grandchildren.

Will I be so brave, Lord, if the madness begins again (as I believe it will)?

I could have no greater hope for myself than that I will.

Thank you for your wonderful example, Mrs. Gies.

WESTERBORK – Delen van barak 57, de barak waar Anne Frank en haar zuster Margot in 1944 batterijen demonteerden, zijn vrijdagmiddag teruggekeerd in het Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork. Dat heeft een woordvoerster van het centrum vrijdag bekendgemaakt.

In de nacht van 18 op 19 juli ging in Veendam een groot deel van de barak in vlammen op. Het houten gebouw deed dienst als landbouwschuur. Het zou in het najaar als eerste complete barak worden afgebroken en naar Westerbork gaan. De brand gooide roet in het eten.
Alleen de noordgevel, delen van de voorgevel, spanten en enkele panelen konden worden gered. Die krijgen nu een plek in het Herinneringscentrum. Met ingang van volgende week zijn de overgebleven delen te zien.

Bron: De Telegraaf

The shed in which Anne Frank and her sister Margot worked dismantling batteries at the Westerbork transit camp before being taken to Auschwitz has been destroyed by fire.

The shed, which has been used for storage on a farm in Veendam since 1957, was about to be dismantled and taken back to Westerbork to form part of the permanent exhibition there.

Source: DutchNews.nl

De eerste dag hebben we het Noorderdierenpark in Emmen bezocht. Dit park bestaat uit twee gedeelten en het grootste gedeelte leek midden in het stadscentrum te liggen. Wat mij opviel aan dit dierenpark waren de vele expositieruimtes met verschillende tentoonstellingen en het feit dat je vrij dicht bij de dieren kon komen. Sommige dieren kon je bijna aanraken.

Dag 2 stond Westerbork op het programma. Kunnen we kort over zijn. Vanuit dit kamp zijn meer dan 100.000 voornamelijk joden vertrokken naar de vernietigingskampen Solibor, Bergen-Belsen en Theresienstadt. Erg indrukwekkend.

Donderdag was de fietsdag: een rit van een kleine 40 kilometer door het Drenthse land. Door heide, bossen, door piepkleine dorpjes.

Ben je in Drenthe, dan moet je eigenlijk de hunebedden zien en de laatste dag zijn we dan ook naar het Hunebedden Info Centrum geweest. Hier werd uitgelegd hoe de hunebedden hier zijn gebouwd en wat het doel van deze bouwwerken was. Bij dit centrum bevind zich ook het grootste hunebed van Nederland.

Ondanks het mindere weer hebben we ons toch vermaakt in het land van Bartje.

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zij had een onvoldoende
voor aardrijkskunde
die laatste dag
maar wist een week later
precies waar Treblinka lag

héél even maar

-Ida Vos (1931-2006)

De gedichten van Ida Vos vormden de rode draad tijdens een speciale verhalennacht, die op 26 januari 2008 op het terrein van het voormalig kamp Westerbork (vorige nacht) werd gehouden. Onder de noemer ‘Verhalen van Westerbork’ staan proza en poëzie over vervolging en verdriet centraal, voorgedragen door overlevenden en nabestaanden, dichters en auteurs, zangers, songwriters en acteurs.

Verhalen van Westerbork: een bijzondere nacht aan de vooravond van de Holocaust Memorial Day.

Niet voor niets is het gedicht Aardrijkskunde een klein gedicht met een enorme aanzeggingskracht. Het gedicht is afkomstig uit de bundel Vijfendertig Tranen (1975), door Ida Vos opgedragen aan haar 31 vermoorde klasgenootjes en de vier die overleefden, waaronder zijzelf.

Wie meer daarover wil lezen kan HIER terecht.