The Descendants blog about topics of their interest. If you would like to comment or want to write a blog yourself, please contact info@thedescendants.nl.

OPEN LETTER TO THE COUNCIL OF CHURCHES IN THE NETHERLANDS Tel Mond – Israel, 8 June 2020 Dear Mr.van Dartel, Combined with the hatred of Jews that has become so commonplace nowadays, the one-sided and unfounded line of reasoning behind the Council’s standpoint on the......

The 696-page book by Rob Bakker on the relation between Dutch civil services and the persecution of the Jews was published and we immediately ordered it. And what a pleasant surprise it was! What our parents suspected and what we heard about bit by bit......

She initiated the upcoming Jewish Memorial Monument that will appear in Diemen, a neighbor city of Amsterdam. The mayor, aldermen and city council embraced the idea of honoring the Jews of Diemen who perished during the Holocaust. Sara is one of the important voices of......

Dear Mrs. Wasum, German Ambassador, Mr. Docter Dutch Ambassador, Mr Loβack former Secretary of State for Education in Schleswig-Holstein, dear family and dear friends. There is a direct line between today’s event and my parents, zichrona levracham, may their memory be a blessing. I have great......

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The Jewish Federations of North America is working to build support for two important bills in Congress that impact the Holocaust Survivor community in the United States and asks (also) for (our) support The Never Again Education Act, introduced as S. 2085 in the Senate and......

@Descendants would like to congratulate the Dutch Auschwitz Committee on the judge’s decision regarding the construction of the Monument of Names. Amsterdam, the Dutch capital, will finally be the site of the monument Daniel Libeskind designed for it. We realize it will not alleviate the......

The text below was written by Herman F. de Vries. His Jewish grandfather, Levie De Vries, was murdered in Poland. In the Cohen Commission’s proposed plan, his descendants not only fail to be included, they are totally ignored.  Herman De Vries has explored the matter......

The response of @Descendants to the 12-page advisory report by the Cohen Commission has finally been clearly formulated: https://commissietegemoetkomingns.nl/app/uploads/2019/06/Advies-Commissie-Individuele-Tegemoetkoming-Slachtoffers-WO-II-Transporten-NS.pdf?fbclid=IwAR38sNhSLu04upT2Ky-_cpej6oVJcoFfl3-Sl09lfgUfayL9F2HYru5ApIY. @Descendants is concerned about the fact that only three categories are included under the proposed compensation arrangement. The recommendations of the Cohen Commission do adhere to......

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyAKmQjhIdzug66BFr8bA-g?view_as=public&fbclid=IwAR35yFMVij5RHJQuKhWAbMxE-H6O-oCyQ7avWlcix5njzdxDUyJyI1kkYcM Preoccupied as we are with our own circumstances, we sometimes forget that there are Jews living in Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and the Ukraine, and that they too are struggling with the heavy legacy of the Shoah. Their historical reality......

She is essentially very much a moderate, Sharon, the daughter of a mother born just after World War Two. Sweet by nature, always friendly, but never lets her guard down. A real second generation girl. At the Yad Vashem School of Education in Israel, she......

More than forty years of genealogy that means that you have an assignment, a self-imposed task that must be performed. With the knowledge that seven family members committed suicide at the start of the Second World War and with an endless list of murdered family......

Commemorate anonymous victims of the Holocaust by clicking on the link below of Illuminate the Past and subscribe them into the Book of Life for Yom HaShoah 2019. https://www.illuminatethepast.org/ Facebook Twitter Linkedin E-mail Pinterest...

The Descendants of the SHOAH Holland find the masking of photos at the exhibition about the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands a GOTSPE. The exhibition, created by the famous NIOD, Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Amsterdam) currently runs at the National......

Robin Ruizendaal, director of a puppet theater museum in Taipei (Taiwan), visited the exhibition In Memoriam in Amsterdam.  Struck by the personal stories of murdered Jewish, Roma and Sinti children, he was especially taken by little Celine de Vries, nicknamed Lieneke, murdered in extermination camp......

Michael Jacobs regularly demonstrates at the Dam-square to expose anti-Semitism and hate speech in the Netherlands. On April 5, just prior to the Shabbat, the Mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema sent Jacobs a letter saying that Jacobs is disturbing the public order with his one-man......

Michael Jacobs’ weekly protests against antisemitism at the National monument on the Dam-square (Amsterdam). Not only several Dutch, but also European politicians recognize the seriousness of the situation. Although many people still seem to find it’s hard to recognize and don’t understand its implications: the......

The tireless Dutch Jewish activist Michael Jacobs was publicly spat at, on the Dam square in Amsterdam, November 25 2018. Jacobs stood, with the Israeli flag around his shoulders, across the street from someone who loudly announced that Israel should be destroyed. The police did......

Lots of us are also dealing with the traumatic past professionally, Emily Wanderer Cohen is one of them. More of Emily? http:/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6P8_11In4Q Facebook Twitter Linkedin E-mail Pinterest...

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Devorah Fishman (Lichtman), daughter of the late Sobibor survivors Eda Fischer and Jitschak Lichtman, spoke about both the burden and honor of growing up as a member of the Second Generation. The most important lesson she learned from her parents was how they preserved their......

Since 2007, archeology doctoral student Yoram Haimi has led excavations at the site of the former death camp together with his Polish counterpart, Wojciech Mazurek, supported by Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research and Directorate. In his lecture, Haimi revealed that over the past......

The Politics behind Poland’s Holocaust Speech Law by Sam Rubin The bus from Warsaw to Rzeszów, Poland, breaks in Kielce, a small city where over 50 Jews were killed by their Polish neighbors in 1946 upon returning from concentration camps and displacement. The bus stopped......

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By Malka Sacham Doron (Translated from Hebrew by Adam Doron) Know where you came from and where you are going. I didn’t always know. And then came images of Rymanow. Showing black and gray stains of people, a square paved with stones on which sit......

From August 5 to August 10 2018, a large genealogy conference with super speakers, such as Prof. dr. Dr. Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, took place. We met a lot of potential relatives. People from all over the world who have roots (elsewhere) in the Diaspora. And yes,......

https://www.caroladevriesrobles.nl Where am I from ? I am from the stars and the sun and a cosmic sea I am from in between up high and deep below I am from female giants with invisible hands and feet I am from a dancing big ree,......

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Just like in Israel and the US, perhaps somewhat more sporadic, the Netherlands also works with family constellations. Descendant Tamara knows the beneficial effect of exploring Jewish themes together. https://www.add-soul.nl   Facebook Twitter Linkedin E-mail Pinterest...

Bubbles in the air, sweet young boys, promised a bright future, living symbols of a life after the Holocaust. Their parents had a heavy traumatic past, but they did well and achieved much in society, built social careers that are respected. Currently a research on......

73 Years later, a copy of the official home-coming form of his dad. René looks at it regularly and tries to interpret what he looking at. Buchenwald wasn’t a subject talked about at home and he wonders how do survive more than three years of concentration......

It is right on the corner with the Lepelstraat. In these streets many Jews lived and afterwards all those houses were empty, at least for 99 percent. My father started a very simple dental practice with no more than a dental chair and a drill.......

“These are my brothers; Abraham, Maurits and Joseph, murdered in Auschwitz, 14, 12 and 8 years old. And then there was also a sister Greetje. After the war my father remarried and his new marriage Greetje (1946), I (Ap 1947) and Dave (1949) were born.......

Eli de Haringman had his fish stall next to the Monument of ‘Gratitude’ (1950), corner Weesperstraat / Sarphatistraat in Amsterdam. Walking to the Snoge, my father was always horrified and we loyally urinated against it. Eli watched us. When he was happy, you got a......

From Descendant Emily Wanderer Cohen, a book about her experiences growing up as 2G. After the Shoah her parents emigrated to the US and in her fifties, the author reflects on her upbringing, showing understanding and universal 2G problems. Not written from a Dutch context,......

Descendant S. and her husband A. were visiting York, an idyllic place in the United Kingdom. And where do you go to? To Clifford’s Tower, which offers you a beautiful view of the medieval city. In 1068 William the Conqueror built a wall with a......

I was shocked, walked out of the hotel and stood face to face with swastikas, SS signs, German soldiers in uniform. What the f*ck? Fortunately, the guide was standing next to me. Ania explained that these Poles like to be Germans and therefore they parade......

Sent by Polish Descendants, a film inspired by the events in Jedwabne, July 10, 1941, pogrom on Jewish inhabitants of the village. Polish complicity during the Holocaust, is that up for discussion? In any case, the Poles have no exclusive right to complicity. Let’s start......

A sign announcing a train is only to warn. But it is in Sobibor and I don’t see a train. Facebook Twitter Linkedin E-mail Pinterest...

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At some point you stand in front of the house of your grandparents. This is the building where your father and his two sisters were born, at the end of the 19th century. Your father fled to the Netherlands before WWII and your knowledge does......

The Descendants respond to the appeal of the Jewish World Congress and take part in #WeRemember. We were in former Galicia and took turns in the photo. Facebook Twitter Linkedin E-mail Pinterest...

These two girls, on a brown photo, are hanging at the permanent exposition in the educational center of Belzec. The monument in Belzec is beautiful. The educational center has a fitting atmosphere, which sounds strange of course, and the people working there are nice. It......

We, The Descendants, write their (and our) history. Bitter but true: it is always us. We, as survivors and descendants, (mostly) write about the genocide. We remember, we tell the stories, Le Dor Wa Dor, we call their names and if we do not know......

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