Life before the war; offspring of a family that had lived in the Netherlands since 1400; moving to Amsterdam in 1938; war breaks out in 1940; deportation to a labor camp; escape; assigned to farm labor; marries and gives birth to a daughter; hiding in various places; liberation; reunited with daughter; life after the war; immigration to Israel in 1951; adjustment to life in Israel.
Testimony of Martin Jakobs, born in 1920 in Amsterdam, about his experiences in Leiden, in hiding in Amsterdam, in France, in a refugee camp near Lausanne, etc.
Childhood in a nonreligious family in Amsterdam; attending a public school; active in a Zionist movement; studying physics at the University of Leiden at age sixteen; war breaks out in 1940; continues to study; Jewish lecturers are fired and leave the university; continues to study in Amsterdam until early 1942; Jews placed under restrictions; Jews are concentrated and the witness goes into hiding; escapes to Belgium with his brother; obtains false...
Information about the family; German occupation ensues in May 1940; witness born in August 1943 in Amsterdam and is immediately handed over to a non-Jewish neighbor; parents find a hideout elsewhere in the area; neighbor's husband keeps a detailed diary about the boy's life and development; parents captured due to denunciation and murdered in April 1945; war ends in May 1945; uncle, a survivor, demands custody of the boy; legal struggle ensues; witness returns to his biological family in 1947; immigration to Eretz Israel in 1979; adjustment to life in Eretz Israel.
Testimony of Basha Bonwitt, born in 1939 in Amsterdam, about her experiences as a girl in Amsterdam and in the home of a non-Jewish family in Treebeek
Offspring of immigrants from Poland who had settled in Amsterdam; placed in a home for mentally impaired children that also accommodated Jewish children, apparently in summer 1942; smuggled into the home of a non-Jewish family in Treebeek in early 1943; living openly there; treated excellently by the couple and their extended family; liberated in autumn 1944; life until the end of the war in 1945; difficult parting with the family upon the return of the...
Testimony of Miriam Schnitzer née Goren, born in 1932 in Amsterdam, about her experiences as a girl in Amsterdam and in the homes of non-Jewish families in a village near Brabant, in Groot Ammers, and in Polsbroek
Life before the war; the only daughter of an affluent nonreligious family; attending a public school; war breaks out in 1940; switching to a Jewish school in 1941; running away from the family home to the home of friends; mother collapses is placed in a hospital; anti-Jewish restrictions escalate; escaping with a friend to a children's home in August 1942; life under conditions of neglect and...
Testimony of Dr. Joseph (Zvi) Haas, born in 1925 in Culemborg, Netherlands, about his experiences in Culemborg, Utrecht, and in various hideouts in the vicinity of Driebergen
Offspring of a traditional family; attends public school; war breaks out in 1940; switches to a Jewish school in Utrecht; anti-Jewish restrictions escalate; attempt to escape to Switzerland fails; family fleet to hiding with a customer of the witness' father in October 1942; family splits up several weeks later; wandering among different families (mainly religious ones) in the vicinity of Driebergen for two and a half years; finding...
Testimony of Alexander Grootman van der Knopp, born in 1939 in Amsterdam, about his experiences as a boy under a false identity with a non-Jewish Dutch family in Amsterdam
Life in Amsterdam at the beginning of the German occupation in 1940; placement with a non-Jewish Dutch couple (evidently in 1941); life under a false identity as the van der Knopps' son until the end of the war in 1045; placement in the Beit Dina Jewish orphanage in Sant Port in 1946; joiing a family that holds “certificates” (Mandate Palestine immigration visas); immigration to Eretz Israel in 1947.
Testimony of Annalie Tal née Loewenbach, born in 1930 in Bentveld, Netherlands, about her experiences as a girl in Bentveld, Haarlem, Bergen-Belsen, Westerbork, etc.
Childhood life before the war; German occupation ensues in May 1940; antisemitism among the local population surges; expelled from school about a year later; transferred to a Jewish school in Haarlem; father dismissed from work and family dispossessed; evicted to Amsterdam in January 1942; anti-Jewish legislation; evening curfew; Jews registered; the yellow star edict; Jews arrested in the streets; children disappear from the Jewish school;...
Testimony of Grace Heimans, born in 1939 in Amsterdam, about her experiences as a girl in hiding in Amsterdam and in a village in the Drogeham area
Life before the war; German occupation ensues in May 1940; father is deported to Auschwitz in August 1942; most of family is deported to Westerbork; they are murdered in the Sobibór cmap in 1943; separation from mother, who is hiding elsewhere; a month and a half later, smuggled to a hideout in the Friesland region with the help of a member of the Dutch resistance; life in hiding with the Nicolai family in a village near Drogeham; information about contacting the...