Aanspraak December 2012 English

AANSPRAAK DECEMBER 2012

Selected articles in English translation

The page numbers refer to the original Dutch edition

Page 3 Speaking for your benefit

Page 4-9 Beate Klarsfeld and her battle against anti-Semitism. Beate Klarsfeld will be the guest speaker at the Auschwitz Never Again Lecture on 24 January 2013.

Page 9-12 ‘Steal a pencil for me’. Loveletters in Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen.

Page 12-15 A place for the ‘Forgotten Holocaust’.

Page 15 The Netherlands Information Office in Israel moves to a new address.

Page 16-20 Christmas in the camp

Page 22 Question & Answer

No rights may be derived from this text. Translation: SVB, Amstelveen.

Speaking for your benefit

My mother, a Jewish lady, survived the war together with my father − unlike many members of the family, who were murdered.

In the spring of 1943, my mother took my sister and me to the station in Rotterdam, walking hand in hand with two toddlers, girls of two and three. She passed us on to a man from the resistance, and left the station. She told me this story again and again, always asking the question, “Do you know what I did when I came out of the station?” Then she tells me how she bought two punnets of strawberries from a grocery store and went home to make strawberry jam. “That way, I still had something in both hands.”

After the war, my parents built up a good life. Energetic, determined and active, but wounded inside.

My mother is now a very old lady of 96. She lives independently in an apartment at a Jewish care home. She feels safe there, together with other people who have experienced “it”, who understand without words. Nowadays, the memories are becoming more and more intrusive. The world around her is shrinking, but the war wounds are getting bigger.

An older friend of mine put it like this: “Soon after the war, I thought the pain and grief would fade, but you know, it’s the opposite; it’s getting worse and worse for me.”

Hans Dresden Chair of The Pension and Benefit Board (Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad)

Beate Klarsfeld and her battle against anti-Semitism

Beate Klarsfeld will be the guest speaker at the Auschwitz Never Again Lecture on 24 January 2013

In 1960 Beate Künzel, who is German, was working as an au pair in Paris, where she met the French Jew Serge Klarsfeld, a political science student, at a metro station. He told her his life story. As a child, Serge had been caught up in a raid and barely managed to escape. His father was murdered in Auschwitz. This was the first time Beate had ever heard about her country’s Nazi history. Right away the two decided to work actively to find Nazis who had gone unpunished and bring them to justice. One of her successes was travelling to Bolivia to expose Klaus Barbie.

Beate Klarsfeld will be talking further about their work during the Auschwitz Never Again Lecture, which she will give on Thursday 24 January 2013 at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam. Each year, the Dutch Auschwitz Committee, the Sociale Verzekeringsbank and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies organise a lecture prior to Holocaust Memorial Day. Beate Klarsfeld will receive the Annetje Fels Kupferschmidt award, named after the Dutch Auschwitz Committee’s founding member. This interview is an introduction to activist Beate Klarsfeld and to her lecture.

Two minds, a single thought

Do you remember anything about the war? I was born in Berlin on 13 February 1939. My parents were not Nazis, but my father did serve in the infantry of the German army. Because he repeatedly caught pneumonia he was assigned to work as an accountant, until he was captured by the British in 1945 as a prisoner of war. When our house was bombed we went to stay with family in the countryside. I remember seeing the Cossacks ride into the village on horseback and searching the house for jewellery. After the war we moved in with another family in Berlin. Later, we did not talk about the war at home or at school; we were more interested in the Cold War. There was one Jewish boy who had returned to school from England, but no one dared to ask him anything.

Why did you want to go to Paris? In 1960 a friend asked me to go to Paris with her as an au pair. I thought, ‘Why not?’ and since I was over 21 I did not need my parents’ permission. I wrote an information leaflet about my experiences as a German au pair in Paris which sold well. When the father of the family I worked for started to become interested in me I looked for another job and became a secretary at the Agency for French and German Youth Work in Paris.

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 4 How did you meet your husband? I was taking French lessons at the Alliance Française and often found myself in the same metro as Serge, who studied political science. He spoke to me on the platform in 1960, asking, ‘Are you English?’ ‘No, German,’ I answered. We started talking and soon became inseparable, then married in 1963. He was born in Bucharest in 1935. What he told me about his experiences in the war was all completely new to me. By 1943 his family had fled to the security of the Italian sector of Nice, which had not seen raids up to then. But on the night of 30 September 1943 the Gestapo appeared at the door. Serge’s brave father surrendered himself, hoping that they would not search further. Serge, his mother and sister hid behind a wardrobe. They survived the war; Serge’s father was murdered in Auschwitz.

Who or what inspires you? Serge gave me a piece of advice: ‘Transform your life into poetry – raise it to a level that makes it an inspiring experience.’ He told me about the German resistance group ‘Die Weiße Rose’ who fought the Nazis in Munich. Their pamphlets urged people to resist the subjugation of minorities and nip it in the bud. It was their fight against anti-Semitism that Serge and I wanted to carry on. As a German I felt a moral obligation to do so, and Serge supported me in everything I did. We are two minds with a single thought.

Kiesinger Never Again

Why did you specifically choose to take action against German Chancellor Konrad Georg Kiesinger? Kiesinger, a member of the CDU party, was chosen as Chancellor in 1966. This was unbelievable given his Nazi past. In the French paper Combat I wrote that it was impossible that a former NSDAP member such as Kiesinger should represent our country, since he had been responsible for Nazi propaganda on the radio, explicitly agitating for hate and the persecution of the Jews, and that Willy Brandt, who had been active in the resistance to the Nazis, was a better candidate. When the article was published I was immediately fired, since the board of directors included former Nazis.

Serge and I decided not to let the matter rest. In the German parliament we sat in the public galleries and shouted ‘Nazi, Nazi!’, but unfortunately that did not generate much attention. I needed to do something drastic. On 7 November 1968, I slapped Kiesinger in the face during a CDU party political gathering, shouting ‘Nazi, Nazi, step down !’. By slapping him I wanted to demonstrate that the younger generation of Germans also disapproved of his Nazi past. Our press photographer’s pictures were published around the world. After I slapped him I was taken away to a police cell. Although the armed police guards at the conference could just as well have shot me dead, I was not afraid. Just as Serge had predicted, the authorities were concerned about tensions arising between France and Germany because I was a French national. The judge gave me a suspended sentence of one year, but this was shortened to four months. When Willy Brandt became Chancellor he granted me amnesty.

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 5 Did that slap achieve the intended effect? It did, and our aim was immediately clear all over the globe. The writer Heinrich Böll sent me a bunch of red roses. He then engaged in a battle of words with Günther Grass, who disapproved of what I had done but did want Kiesinger to go. I received many letters of support from victims of war around the world. The German press and the CDU called it scandalous, but I didn’t care. We tried to block his re-election and were successful. We and our supporters followed him wherever he went to speak, always calling out ‘Kiesinger Never Again!’ and ‘Nazi, Nazi, step down!’ When socialist politician Willy Brandt was elected in 1969, we had attained our goal. We helped Germany to change. In 2012 I was chosen as one of the two candidates for the German Presidency. Joachim Gauck was the symbol of the fight in East Germany for freedom; I was the symbol of the fight in West Germany against former Nazis. He was elected.

Hunting Nazis

When you located Nazis abroad, how did you get them to court without an extradition order? Finding them was not the biggest problem – that was getting the countries where they were living to extradite them. We collected evidence and involved the international media in my protest activities in order to gain public notice. In Germany we applied political pressure from France as well as using international media attention to force the creation of a law that would allow German Nazis who had committed war crimes in France to be brought to court in Germany since they could not be extradited. That became the ‘Lex Klarsfeld’. Meanwhile, in Germany, Serge tracked down the former Gestapo leader of Paris, Kurt Lischka, threatening him with a pistol at his head. We preferred to see him cooperate than to do him harm, but when he didn’t, we tried to kidnap him. Unfortunately for us Lischka escaped, and I spent four weeks in jail while he walked free. It was completely the wrong way round, of course, and the international press was full of scorn. It took us another eight years to bring Kurt Lischka and the others to court.

What were the most frightening experiences of your battle? In 1972 a package was delivered to our house. My mother-in-law accepted it from the postman and Serge opened it, and they saw that it was full of something that looked rather like sugar. At first the police refused to investigate seriously, but in fact it did turn out to be a bomb. And in 1979 a bomb blew up our car in our garage. After that we did receive a bit of police protection, but if someone is determined to get to you then that will not stop them. We never let our enemies get the upper hand.

What gave you hope? Our family, our two grandchildren, our dogs and cats: we all support each other through thick and thin. Our children Arno and Lida, born in 1965 and 1973, both became lawyers and worked alongside us in our legal cases against war criminals. My daughter currently looks after her children and my son is head of the French immigration and integration service. My family is a huge motivation, and I do my work to ensure a better future for my children and grandchildren.

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 6 What are you most proud of? Our biggest success was our search for the Gestapo leader known as the butcher of Lyon, Klaus Barbie. He had been sentenced to death in absentia in 1954. The American secret service employed him in their anti-communist work in Germany, sending him to Bolivia in 1951 where he took a new identity and name, Klaus Altmann. I travelled to La Paz in 1972, first alone, then with Ita Halaunbrenner, a war survivor who had lost her family due to him. We chained ourselves to a park bench right in front of his office for six hours while holding large protest signs. I was taken into custody by the Bolivian police during the press conference afterwards, and Serge had to go to great lengths to have me released. In 1983 French president François Mitterrand – himself a former resistance leader – put pressure on Bolivia’s new government to have Barbie extradited to France. He was finally put on trial in France in 1987. Serge, along with my son and daughter who had become lawyers, had the evidence needed to prove his direct involvement: a telex bearing his signature which concerned transport orders for 41 Jewish children from an orphanage in Izieu. His life sentence was the ultimate success in our work.

How do you look back on your work? I never could have dreamed that I could have done all of this, especially being German. We have had support from the United States, Israel, France and the former East Germany. In 1986 there was an American television film about our work to bring Klaus Barbie to justice; it was called ‘The Beate Klarsfeld Story’ and starred Farrah Fawcett. There was also a French movie ‘La traque’ made in 2008 with Franka Potente as the lead actress. The Knesset nominated me for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 and 1984, which was a special honour for me as a German. We have always remained neutral politically, and in order to attain our aims we have been on good terms with right-wing leaders such as Sarkozy as well as the socialist Hollande.

Every victim is given a name

How did your husband manage to extract information from archives when so many of them were not public? Serge is a man of great patience. He succeeded to open the archives of deported French citizens and became the first French historian to begin working with them. It was only with the right evidence that we could put war criminals behind bars. Survivors themselves often provided valuable information too. For instance, a unique Auschwitz photo album of a Nazi photographer was handed over to Serge, and it became evidence. Serge received permission from its owner, Lili Jacob, to publish the photographs before she gave the album to Yad Vashem in 1980.

Has your aim now changed from hunting Nazis to publishing information about French deportations? No, we always work towards multiple goals at the same time. In 1979 we set up the ‘Association des Fils et Filles des Déportés Juifs de France’ with the aim of collecting the details of thousands of people who were deported. We investigated whether or not their surviving family members were entitled to any benefits, and legislation was drawn

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 7 up to this effect. Serge recently published a monumental work of symbolic importance, ‘Mémorial de la déportation des Juifs de France’, in which he describes in detail the personal deportation stories of French and foreign Jews, including Dutch ones. Serge is eager to restore a name, history and identity to each of the Nazis’ victims.

Why is it important to mark Holocaust Memorial Day? It is enormously important that people around the world remember the Holocaust. We must continue to learn from it and to do all that we can to ensure that hateful ideas about minorities will never again grow into something like that. We need to fight hate actively and everywhere, because we know how quickly the tide can turn, even in a parliamentary democracy and especially in times of crisis.

Interview: Ellen Lock

Ticket reservations for the 2013 Auschwitz Never Again Lecture

Beate Klarsfeld will give the Auschwitz Never Again Lecture on Thursday 24 January 2013 at the Royal Institute for the Tropics in Amsterdam. A limited number of tickets are available. If you would like to attend, please register before 1 January 2013. You can do so via www.svb.nl/NMAlezing or by calling +31 (0)20 656 4802. Doors open at 2:30 p.m. and the lecture will be held (in English) at 3 p.m. A reception will take place after the lecture and will last until 6 p.m.

‘Steal a pencil for me’. Loveletters in Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen.

Jaap Polak and Ina Soep met each other for the first time at a birthday party in Amsterdam in June 1943. Although it was love at first sight for Jaap, he was already caught in an unhappy marriage and he had promised his mother-in-law that he would stay married until the war was over. Then, in the camp at Westerbork, he met Ina again, and this time their feelings for each other could not be denied. Because their love was impossible, they wrote secret love letters to each other. After the war, Jaap’s marriage was dissolved and at last, in 1946, he and Ina were married. When their daughter found their letters in the attic, she decided to publish them. Here, Jaap tells his own story.

Every time the doorbell rang, you were terrified ‘I was born on 31 December 1912 into an orthodox Jewish family. I went to Trade School and then got a job at the Carlton Hotel. My mother was a member of the Asscher family, the well-known diamond merchants. My father was an accountant and he wanted me to become an accountant too, rather than go into the diamond business. I was just starting out as an accountant when I got married in 1939. As soon as the Jewish raids started in February 1941, the only choice we had was to go into hiding, commit suicide or leave the country. Every time the doorbell rang, I was terrified. In 1943 when I was visiting a customer in Amsterdam, I was rounded up in a huge raid, along with another 400 Jewish people. We were lined up against the wall of the Amstel Brewery and I thought my end was near, but the Germans only fired into the air. We spent the night in a school building and the next morning, 200 of us were put onto the train to Westerbork. To our amazement, they just let the rest of us go, including me! My sister Betty’s husband was in the resistance. He arranged a place for us to go into hiding, but we refused. In July 1943, my wife and I were arrested while we were visiting friends.

Too late In Westerbork I tried to get a job as soon as possible so they would let me stay there. Everyone was afraid of the notorious Tuesday transport to the camps in Germany and Poland. I became headmaster of the school, and taught Dutch and maths and organised music evenings. And here I met the enchanting Ina Soep again. Her father was in the diamond business and she had used diamonds to buy some time before she was deported. Ina was ten years younger than me and I was fascinated by her. We did not want to publicly embarrass my wife, so we began to write to each other in secret. I saw my parents for the last time in Westerbork. In a letter to Ina, I wrote that I hoped they would not have to work so hard. We knew absolutely nothing about the death camps. I found out after the war that my parents had been sent to the gas chambers in Sobibor. Only a few trains went to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp where only people who had special papers that gave them some sort of protection were sent. My parents were on the ‘Palestine list’, a list of Jewish people who could be sent from Bergen-Belsen in exchange for German Templars who had become British prisoners of war in Palestine.

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 9 Unfortunately the Palestine certificate did not arrive in time for my parents: we did not get it until after they had been deported. In February 1944, my wife, my sister Liesje and I were deported with that certificate to Bergen-Belsen.

Bread for an emergency In Bergen-Belsen, you did not have a number tattooed on your arm and you were allowed to keep your belongings for a while so you could exchange them for bread. I used my experience in hotel work to bluff my way into the kitchens so that I could be as close to food as possible. In the ‘shoe commando’, I took shoes apart so that the leather could be recycled. We had no idea that they came from people who had been murdered in Auschwitz. I taught children here too. As Ina’s parents were able use their diamonds to pay the 120,000 guilder stamps for deportation to Bergen-Belsen, we met each other again in that camp too. Between stretches of hard work, we kept each other going by writing letters. In one letter I asked her to steal a pencil for me because she worked as a secretary for a group of people who had to set up a diamond factory. Many people died from exhaustion, illness and malnutrition. I traded my second pair of shoes for bread that I had saved in case of an emergency. My sister was sick and needed bread, but I did not give it to her. A friend asked me for bread for her sick son, but I did not give it to him because I wanted to survive. I felt deeply ashamed about this after the war. When Ina was seriously ill, my wife gave her bread so that she could regain her strength.

I was a shadow of my former self On 9 April 1945, my wife and I were put onto cattle trucks by the SS and transported deeper and deeper into Germany away from the advancing Russians. We lost contact with Ina. I had to bury many of the prisoners who died on the way. On the fifth day, the train was bombed from the air. The SS told us to hide in the woods. My wife was sick and had to stay in the train. There was a moment in the chaos that I got the chance to escape, but for my wife’s sake, I returned to the train. We were liberated by the Russian army near Tröbitz on 23 April 1945. I immediately went down with spotted fever, and lay in a coma for two days before I finally came round. I had survived the Holocaust. I was a shadow of what I had been; I weighed 35 kilos, I was bald and had lost some of my teeth. When my sister Betty came to see me in a hospital in Eindhoven, she did not recognise me. Ina had been liberated earlier by American troops from a train near the Elbe.

Reunited Ina found a place to live in Amsterdam. Seeing each other again was pure bliss. I started divorce proceedings and Ina and I were finally married in 1946. We had two sons, Frederick and Anthony. I set up business in Amsterdam as a tax adviser. I helped a lot of female clients who had survived the Holocaust to fill in their tax forms, recover their possessions and sort out their emigration documents. We stayed in Amsterdam for five years, and in 1951 during the Korean war, we decided to go to America because we were afraid that Russian territorial ambition could lead them to invade Europe. Ina’s parents had already emigrated to America and her father bought a house there for us too.

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 10 That is where our daughter Margrit was born. When my father in law died in 1953, I took over his diamond business, and eventually sold it. I invested the money I got, and that went so well that I became an investment adviser. That turned out to be the work I enjoyed most.

Act against injustice In America, Ina became an active political campaigner for the Democrats. In 1973, I became involved with the ‘American Friends of Anne Frank’ foundation and was appointed director. Later I became the vice chair, and then the chair. For the last few years I have held the position of honorary chair of the Anne Frank Center in New York. In 1977 our daughter discovered our love letters in the attic. She translated them into English, and they were turned into a book called ‘Steal a pencil for me’. The book was filmed as a documentary, and is shortly to be made into an opera. We now use the book and the film to give talks on tolerance and the Holocaust. We teach a young public that wherever they see injustice, they should take action against it, and not just stand by and watch. On 31 December 2012, I hope to celebrate my 100th birthday together with my sisters, Lies (90) from Israel and Betty (93) from Holland.

Interview: Ellen Lock

A place for the ‘Forgotten Holocaust’.

In the presence of the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, Zoni Weisz unveiled the Sinti and Roma monument in Berlin.

Zoni Weisz, a member of the Client Council for Members of the Resistance and Victims of War, works on behalf of the Sinti and Roma community inside and outside the Netherlands. On 21 June 2012 he received the Bundesverdienstkreuz 1st class from the German government. As the representative of the European Sinti and Roma community, he spoke at the unveiling of the Sinti and Roma monument near the Reichstag in Berlin on 24 October 2012. Here is a summary of his speech.

A memorable day Chancellor Angela Merkel, ladies and gentlemen, ‘Latcho Dives Mare Sinti oen Roma’. A special welcome to all those who survived the genocide of the Sinti and Roma. For you, the survivors, this is a special day, but also an ambivalent day. On the one hand, we feel joy that this monument has finally been unveiled, but on the other hand it is inevitable that we think back to the terrible Nazi period and to our loved ones who did not survive the insanity of that time. For me, as a survivor, it is a particular honour, but also a very emotional occasion to be able to speak to you here today; to speak as the representative of the hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma who were sacrificed to the racial delusion of national socialism. After many years of making preparations and solving the problems we encountered on the way, the time has come at last for us to unveil, in this wonderful place in the centre of Berlin, our monument to the memory of all the Sinti and Roma who were murdered by the Nazis. An original, beautiful and thought-provoking monument, designed by the Israeli artist Dani Karavan.

A tangible acknowledgement of our suffering For the many who have died, it is unfortunately too late, but for the few who can join us today with their families, I regard this monument as a form of ‘Wiedergutmachung’. It is the tangible acknowledgement of the unimaginable suffering inflicted on our people. I hope that as with the monument for the Jews murdered by the Nazis, which stands just a stone’s throw from here, it will help the world to realise the horrors our people endured during the Nazi period. Xenophobia and racism have always existed and it was not the first time that the Sinti and Roma had been persecuted and excluded. But although we had been exposed to persecution for hundreds of years, the Nazi persecution was beyond imagining. As soon as Hitler came to power in 1933, Sinti and Roma were deported to concentration camps such as Dachau and Sachsenhausen. Simply because of who they were: Sinti and Roma. Pure insanity! And it was already clear that it was not only the Sinti and Roma who would suffer, but the Jews as well. Gradually, we were stripped of our rights. We were made to wear identification, registered, isolated, robbed, deported and eventually murdered. The meaningless industrialised murder of

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 12 defenceless, innocent people, conceived and implemented to the last detail by fanatical Nazis and bureaucrats. Criminals who found legitimacy for their crimes in the Race Laws. Half a million Sinti and Roma, men, women and children were murdered during the Holocaust. But if we look at the way we are still being treated by society, nothing, practically nothing, has been learnt from it. The world knows little or nothing about the genocide of the Sinti and Roma. Even during the Nuremberg trials, scarcely a word was spoken about the fate of the Sinti and Roma. I hope that with the unveiling of this monument, the ‘Forgotten Holocaust’, as I call it, will no longer be forgotten, but will receive the attention it deserves.

When I saw my loved ones for the last time I am able to be with you here today because of the miraculous way I escaped the so- called ‘Zigeunertransport’ of 19 May 1944 from the camp at Westerbork to Auschwitz. As a seven-year old boy, I was also due to be deported and I was standing on the railway platform with my aunt Moezla and a small group of family members waiting for the train to Auschwitz. The train arrived, and my father and mother, my sisters and my brother were already on it. I immediately saw where they were because my father had hung my sister’s blue jacket through the bars of the cattle truck. If I close my eyes, I can still feel how wonderfully soft my sister’s jacket was. We were supposed to join the Auschwitz transport, but with the help of a ‘good’ policeman we managed to escape. At the last moment, my father shouted desperately ‘Moezla, take good care of my boy!’ That was the last I saw of my beloved family. That image will be etched on my brain for ever. I was completely alone. To be seven years old and to have lost everything; you cannot begin to describe how desperate you feel.

I have said it often in the past, but today, in this place, I need to speak about it to you. Often, today too, I think of my mother who cared for my brother and sisters in the most appalling circumstances in the ‘Zigeunerlager’ in Auschwitz-Birkenau. We cannot by any stretch of the imagination conceive of the suffering that my mother and all the other mothers had to endure, including the horrific medical experiments perpetrated on their children. Finally, in the night of 2 to 3 August 1944, the remaining 2,900 women, children and old people in the ‘Zigeunerlager’ were sent to the gas chamber, including my mother and my brother and sisters. This is why we have gathered here today. We now have a place of our own to remember our loved ones who were murdered.

A monument to hope This is a monument to recognition. Recognition of the suffering inflicted on us. It is a monument to encourage reflection, but it is also a monument that raises questions. How was it possible for so many innocent people to be murdered? How was it possible for so many people to look the other way and think that it would not be so bad? How was it possible for so many people to go along with what was happening, to be complicit in the greatest crime in the history of humanity? We must learn lessons from history. Our loved ones cannot and must not have died for nothing. With all the democratic means at our disposal, we must ensure that such destructive ideologies can never take hold again in the future. It is our task to create the conditions in which minority groups can live in

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 13 peace and security. This is also a monument to hope. The hope that everyone, irrespective of their background, skin colour or religious beliefs, should be granted equal rights and equal opportunities. The hope that those rights are recognised and enforced in practice. The hope that the fascism, racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Ziganism which is evident in many countries today, does not grow the way it did in the 1930s. The hope that we will no longer tolerate expressions of hatred for other ethnic groups. The hope that we can respect differences between cultures and people. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to finish with the hope that this monument will become a place of reflection and realisation, and that it will contribute to our mutual understanding so that we can live together in peace and friendship. Thank you.

Text photograph: The monument to Roma and Sinti victims consists of a large slab covered with a layer of water. In the middle of the slab, there is a stone. According to artist Dani Karavan, there should always be a fresh, flowering rose lying on the stone. The water is framed by a mosaic of stones.

The Netherlands Information Office in Israel moves to a new address.

Following a decline in the amount of work required of the Netherlands Information Office (NIK) in Jerusalem, the administration will be reorganised to ensure that the high level of service to our clients in Israel is maintained. As part of this reorganisation, the NIK will move from Jerusalem to the Dutch Embassy in Ramat Gan.

The NIK is vital to client service in Israel In 1971, the Dutch ambassador asked Mr Gerard Polak to set up a Bureau in Israel, which later became the NIK. The Bureau was to assist in the administration of the ‘Special Government Scheme for Victims of Persecution 1940-1945’, the forerunner of the Benefit Act for Victims of Persecution (1940-1945). It started with 500 cases and was expected to be open for no longer than two years. However, the number of applications that streamed in was so great that it was forced to take on more staff. The Bureau became an essential part of the service of the Pension and Benefit Board and the Sociale Verzekeringsbank to its clients in Israel, a role that it still fulfils today. in 1982 Elly Maoz-Drukker took over from Gerard Polak, to be succeeded in turn by Roosje Polak-Wajsberg at the end of 1993.

A good team Head of Bureau, Roosje Polak-Wajsberg: “The NIK serves as an outpost of the PUR/SVB in Israel. Because some of our older clients had lost their command of Dutch, we appointed an advocate to help them draw up their requests for review. As well as taking care of applications and requests for review, we organise consultation sessions and information meetings throughout the country and support foreign delegations. Our work is difficult but also rewarding. It is only possible, though, because we form a good team and have always been able to rely on each other.”

Change Of Address As from 1 January 2013, clients who need assistance can go to the new Department for Members of the Resistance and Victims of War in the Dutch Embassy, Rechov Abba Hillel 14 (13th floor), Ramat Gan 52506, Tel Aviv, telephone number: + 972-3-7540741 or + 972-3- 7540742, fax number: + 972-3-7540757, e-mail: [email protected]

We will continue our consultation sessions in Beth Joles, Beth Juliana and Jerusalem, to assist clients with their questions and problems. An advocate will also remain available. NIK client service will be carried out by Thirza Yunger-Cohen and John Groenendijk, under the supervision of William Veldhuijzen van Zanten. Lea Coerman, Miriam Ludriks-Fischer en Roosje Polak-Wajsberg will be leaving the NIK shortly. We would like to express our sincere thanks and appreciation for all the years of dedication they have shown to the task!

Photograph caption: from left to right: Roosje Polak, William Veldhuijzen-van Zanten, Lea Coerman, Miriam Ludriks, John Groenendijk and Thirza Yunger.

Christmas in the camp

In the last edition, our editorial team asked you to send in your special Christmas stories from the war or the Bersiap period in the Dutch East Indies so that we could print them as a collection. We were inundated with beautiful, poignant Christmas stories. Unfortunately we could not print them all, but we have selected and summarised some of them here.

Christmas during the Japanese occupation 1942. My father was director of the Volks Crediet Bank in Demak. He was arrested and interned in March 1942. No one was willing to take my mother and her five children in: too noisy and too many mouths to feed. We celebrated Christmas in a rented furnished house, without my father or a Christmas tree. My younger brother and I thought it was all very bare, so we went in search of a branch that could serve in the place of a fir tree. We folded red crêpe paper round the lamp and cut what was left into fine strips. A few evenings before, we had caught fireflies in a tin. On Christmas eve, we had the red light from the lamp and we lit up the decorated ‘tree’ by releasing the fireflies into it. It moved us all to tears, even me, the little one. That was my first ‘Christmas’ in the Japanese period. In the end, it turned out to be the most beautiful Christmas I have ever had. From Heidie von Barnau Sijthoff, e-mail: [email protected]

Christmas in the Bersiap period. One evening, the Belandas (the Dutch) who still lived there had got together out of fear and were sitting in a huddle on the ground with as little light as possible. One boy had found a revolver with one bullet left in it while he was out foraging for food. The grown-ups were philosophising about when to use the bullet. Suddenly a voice cried ‘Today’s Christmas!’ ‘You’re right,’ someone said, ‘We’re sitting here discussing life and death when we should be talking about peace on earth and a new-born child.’ ‘Yes,’ said someone else, ‘and about Christmas, tinsel and lights. Will we ever be able to celebrate Christmas again, with everything that’s special about it, not to forget the food.’ At the word ‘food’ everyone started conjuring up images of a Christmas dinner. Our mouths were watering. And as I listened to them, I knew I wanted to stay alive. I looked at the shining eyes around me and actually understood the message of Christmas for the very first time. Maybe we had done nothing to stop what was happening to us. Maybe we had made things too easy for these gangs of murderous young men. We decided that it was time we tried to escape rather than just waiting to die. One of the group managed to get a sympathetic acquaintance to have us picked up by a lorry full of machine guns. We could only take with us what was absolutely essential. The lorry appeared at the house and we had to lie down flat on the floor. Then we started our perilous journey to Bandung. It felt as though the lights of Christmas were protecting us and we made it through unharmed to the ‘safe camp’ in Tjihapit. From Ms Antie Schurink- Regeer, Cartier van Disselstraat 64, room 106, 4835 KP Breda, tel: 076-5607681, e-mail: [email protected]

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 16 Christmas 1942. When we first asked our camp leaders if we could do something for Christmas, the idea was rejected out of hand. At the last moment they let us hold a Christmas celebration under strict surveillance, but the Japanese wouldn’t allow us to sing. And the sentry watch inside the camp which was always kept by forty prisoners of war had to go ahead as usual. For these people it would be a real disappointment not to be able to celebrate Christmas. As commander of the Jewish prisoners of war I offered that we would take care of both the watch and the usual duties during the celebrations so that the 5,000 other prisoners of war could celebrate Christmas. That gesture earned us great respect from our fellow prisoners. Although no one was able to go outside the camp, there were still a few packets of cigarettes in circulation for the watch. There was also coffee and extra gruel for the night watch. Even the Japanese guards outside the camp refrained from handing out their usual beatings. From a letter from my late husband Joost Glaser, Ms Annie Glaser-van der Sluis, Smaragdhorst 519, The Hague.

25 December 1944, Christmas Day in Kampili, Celebes (Sulawesi). It is Christmas again, and we have all just come from the padre’s sermon in the Church shed. Today, Christmas Day 1944, we buried two people: a child in the morning and a 36 year-old woman in the afternoon. You can understand that the mood in the camp is very dejected. I have only been back home (in the shed) for the last two days from the dysentery barracks where I stayed for three and a half weeks. While I was sick, our sewing room was allowed to make 500 pairs of shorts for the men in the Parékamp where uncle Henk is and many more people we know. On Christmas Eve, the Commandant delivered the shorts to Paré himself, so they have received our Christmas present. From the diary kept by my grandmother, Jo Duin-Smits, in the women’s camp at Kampili on Celebes. The diary is written in the form of letters to her children. From Henk Mreijen, Meteorenstraat 11, 1223 EP Hilversum, tel: 035-6854550 e-mail: [email protected]

Christmas in Surabaya 1942. In 1942 the men in Surabaya were interned in makeshift Japanese camps such as in the Higher Education building (HBS). That night, Ms de Bruin had given birth to a daughter, but her husband was in the camp. How could she let him know that he was a father? The padre came to my mother for advice because she was still in touch with my father, even though he was interned, through our nanny (baboe) who managed to get letters to him in secret. But our baboe didn’t dare do this anymore because the Japanese beatings were very hard for those who got caught. My mother gathered her courage together, got onto her bike and cycled off down the silent, empty road that led to the camp. As she cycled round the camp, she sang: ‘Major de Bruin’s wife had a baby tonight. Mother and daughter are doing fine.’ After three times round the camp, she cycled back as fast as she could and fortunately for her, she wasn’t caught. Years later she heard that the good news had got through to him. For him, my mother was like an angel who had brought him good tidings of the birth of his child. From: Jackie Ambriola-Zagt, Badhuisstraat 76 1789 AL Huisduinen, tel: 0223-617607, e-mail: [email protected]

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 17 I don’t have a Christmas story because I no longer have any memory of a Christmas gathering in Bangkattan, even though there must have been one. Bangkattan is the hospital camp near Bindjei, Medan, on East Sumatra. I was seven years old, and it was my first camp. But I do still have this beautiful book cover that I was given with the book ‘Lieneke’ by Enny van der Heide. From Nelly Vissers-Zipp, Zwaluwstraat 252, 3145 NH Maassluis, tel: 010-5913553, e-mail: [email protected]

The Japanese camp of Banyu Biru 10 or 11, 25 December 1944 – Singing in the living and sleeping areas wasn’t allowed. But some of the women started singing ‘Ere zij God’ and everyone joined in. Immediately, a Japanese commandant appeared, but this time, instead of making the usual 90-degree bow, we carried on singing until the end. God took precedence! When we’d finished, we all bowed dutifully. The commandant must have sensed that the moment was sacred, and he left quietly. After that a few of the children got together, determined that we should celebrate Christmas. It was already evening. My mother still had a stump of candle and we went outside to sit around the tree. We lit the candle and the tree immediately went up in flames, so that was the end of our Christmas celebration. We were all terribly hungry and didn’t expect that we would ever get out of the camp. A few of the mothers started singing ‘Come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, Come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem!’ When we’d finished that line, we were amazed to hear the whole of the men’s camp answer with the second line. Then we sang the third. It was the most beautiful Christmas ever and it gave us hope again. ‘ From Anne Rietkerk-Houthuysen, 1111-800 Chieftain St., Woodstock ON N4T1T8, Canada, tel: 001-519-539-0855, e-mail: [email protected]

The Japanese camp at Gedung Badak, Christmas 1944 in the barracks. It is the third Christmas in the camp without papa. Mama still wants to make it a proper Christmas for us. She’s been busy for days already. Sister Roos, who leads the camp choir group, has been teaching us Christmas carols. It feels very special to celebrate Christmas outside under the palm trees, with the women and children in their shabby clothes. But they sing the carols with great enthusiasm, their eyes shining. Afterwards I walk quietly back to our barracks. As I enter, I see tiny lights burning at the back, near our bunk. What are they? I walk quickly towards them. On the window ledge in front of our bunk, there is a Christmas tree made out of a single branch. The ‘tree’ is decorated with silver balls and shining birthday cake candles. It is beautiful! All the women and children in the barracks come and look without saying a word, their eyes glistening. I am so thankful and proud that I have a mother, and that she has made this for us. For a moment, I can forget that I am in a camp. From my book: ‘De klok, Het kampkind in mij spreekt nu’. Mieke Biessen- Dokman, Prof. Dumontstraat 31, 6419BR Heerlen, tel: 045-5713194.

Christmas, East Java 1943. My mother was expecting a child, and saying goodbye to my father was very emotional. He had to report to the 10th KNIL battalion in Malang. We went further inland to the safe village of Ngandjuk in East Java. It was a late afternoon just before Christmas, and a storm was raging, with thunder and lightning. We, my grandfather, grandmother, mother and four children, were sitting under the roof of the veranda, when an old blind beggar appeared through the pouring rain, out of

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 18 now-where, leaning with one hand on the shoulder of a small girl. Mother gave him alms. He said ‘You mustn’t be sad and cry about your husband. I see him in frayed trousers doing hard labour in a far-off country, breaking rocks and carrying them to a line of rails. But he will return to you alive. He will send you a message. Then they left just as suddenly as they had appeared, dissolving into the rain and leaving us speechless with astonishment. A few days later, on Boxing Day, December 1943, a soiled card, postmarked Siam, arrived from my father. The card said ‘Prisoner of War. My Christian name: Hendrik Charles, My surname: Harmanus, Nationality: Dutch. I am working for pay. My health is excellent.’ We thanked God in our prayers for this Christmas present. In spite of all the sadness, misery and hunger, our Christmas in December 1943 was unforgettable. Later, we found out that father had been made to work as a prisoner of war on the death railway. From Louis Harmanus, Couperusstraat 25, 2985 CC Ridderkerk, tel: 0180-431183.

Christmas 1945. I often went with my father to the cattle market in Solo. My father bought a ram there and I loved that animal. During the war, my father was arrested by the Japanese Kempetai on suspicion of sabotage, and died a terrible death in the Penjara Sukamiskin prison in Bandung. So the Japanese capitulation in August 1945 was not a happy event for us. And it didn’t make our lives any better either. The Dutch internees still lived in fear in the Japanese camps and many Indo-Europeans were also unexpectedly interned, especially in East Java. At the age of nine, I arrived at a Japanese camp with my mother. The camp was in a former Dutch boys boarding school for the children of the planters in Solo. We slept on mats on the floor of the classrooms. My mother, Annie Bos-Soetiani, threw her energy into organising a Christmas dinner for Christmas 1945. She had our gardener bring the ram to the camp and bribed the camp guards by promising them a good bowl of soup. In a giant pot, she made a delicious soup from the slaughtered ram and some rice, and everyone got their Christmas dinner. As the smell attracted more and more people with hunger in their eyes, the pot got emptier and emptier. Inventive as always, my mother secretly filled it up with water so there was enough for everyone. You can imagine why this has always stayed in my memory. From Mr Jo Bos, ’t Beusje 13, 8381 CZ Vledder, tel: 0521-383046.

The Christmas present, Christmas 1944, our third Christmas as prisoners of war. In our women’s camp on Java, Ambarawa 9, the thin, worn faces betrayed our deep sense of despondency. We no longer mentioned the word Christmas and many of us would have liked to banish even the thought of Christmas from our hearts. Opposite my bunk was that of a woman doctor who was there with her six children. Because their mother was always working to help the others in the camp, the children were often left alone. There were five girls, and a boy of three, Daan, who was the youngest. I shall never forget the image of the boy sitting on his bunk, his thin little body with his legs crossed under him and his blue eyes fixed on the door as he waited for his mother to return, and the cry he gave when at last she did. The Japs did actually give us a bit extra at Christmas: vegetable soup drawn from tiny grains of minced meat. You couldn’t see the meat, but you could taste it. We waited passively for our Christmas meal. The number of our barracks, number 10, was called. We all gulped our soup up as fast as we could.

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 19 Daan enjoyed it too, but not in the same way. Every time he felt a grain of meat in his mouth he laid it on the edge of his plate. His sisters said ‘Come on Daan, eat it! It’s good for you!’, but he shook his head and kept staring at the open space behind the door. Suddenly, he gave a cry, ‘Mummy, meat for you, from me, for Christmas!’ – I am one of the five daughters of Ms Koets, the woman doctor. My brother Daan is now 72. From Margreet Donker van Heel-Koets, Plantijnstraat 109, 2321 JH Leiden, tel: 071-5768641.

A warm Christmas, April 1945. After a series of Japanese internment camps, my mother, my sisters and I finally arrived in the camp at Tjideng in Batavia. Life there was hard, we didn’t have much strength left, and there was only starch paste to keep us going. The death rate was high. You could be punished for as little as not bowing at the right time. The camp commandant, Sonei, was callous and cruel. When there was a full moon, he was terrified of aircraft flying over the camp. Rumours started to spread that we were about to be liberated. After months of hope and fear, Japan capitulated on 15 August 1945. But our camp wasn’t liberated. Instead, we were attacked by extremists, and now it was the Japanese who guarded us against them. Eventually, we managed to trace our father through the Red Cross. After four years, we hardly recognised him. He was thin and sick, but happy that we had all survived the camps. We received messages from fellow prisoners who had lost their husbands or sons. More and more people learned that they were widows or orphans. Hunger gave way to grief. Time passed, it was nearly December and Christmas was approaching. In the meantime, ships had started carrying the sick and the widows and orphans back to the Netherlands. We were classed as ‘healthy’, so we had to stay and wait our turn. Still, we felt thankful. The food improved and life became less stressful. I wanted to feel that it was Christmas again. I chopped a large branch from a tree and fastened it to the wall. I hung it with Christmas balls made from rambutans (small hairy fruit) and tinsel made out of thin strips of old cloth, and there was my Christmas tree. When they saw it, my parents were silent and my thirteen- year-old self tried to imagine what they were thinking. With the others who were left, we sang Silent Night and we were all moved by it. Even though we were still in the camp, we could sing, and the warmth around us was tangible. We listened to the story of Christmas and finished by singing a special carol, ‘Peace on Earth’. That is now 67 years ago and as we celebrate Christmas again, my thoughts return to 1945. ‘Peace on earth’. From: An Dekker-de Bruyn, Adelaarstraat 2, 3145 AA Maasluis, tel: 010-5918415, e-mail: [email protected]

Question & Answer

Will the gradual increase in the AOW pension age affect the Wbp, Wuv or Wubo? If you are 65 or older, the increase in the AOW pension age will not affect you. Neither will it have any consequences for the allowance under Article 19 of the Wubo or the amount for non-measurable incapacity costs (NMIK) under the Wuv scheme. If you are under 65 and you have an extraordinary pension or a monthly Wuv or Wubo benefit, your benefit will, in principle, remain unchanged until you reach your AOW pension age. Before you reach the AOW pension age, we will send you information about how your benefit will change after that date. Your extraordinary pension or benefit will be reassessed after you have reached your AOW pension age. If there is a drop in your income, or you acquire another source of income before or after that date, you should report it to us so that we can reassess your extraordinary pension or benefit taking the change in your income into account.

The decision I received refers to the policy rules of the Pension and benefit Board. Where can I find these? The policy rules drawn up by the Pension and Benefit Board (Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad; PUR) can be found on our website (www.svb/wvo), and contain, for example, the conditions under which an allowance or compensation can be awarded.

Will extraordinary pensions and war benefits be reduced as a result of the cutbacks? There are no plans to cut back on the pensions and benefits paid under the schemes for former members of the Resistance and victims of war. In fact, we expect the gross amount of these pensions and benefits to increase slightly next year. However, plans for changes in the tax system (such as an increase in the tax rate for the lowest tax bracket) could affect pensioners and benefit recipients adversely. This would include those who receive an extraordinary pension or benefit on the basis of their experiences during the war.

I have applied for a benefit from the Ghetto Fund. If I am successful, will this be deducted from my Wuv benefit? No, the Pension and Benefit Board (PUR) took the decision not to deduct this type of benefit from extraordinary pensions and benefits under the Wuv and Wubo schemes. This applies whether or not the benefit is paid periodically or only once. More information about the Ghetto Fund and Ghetto pension can be obtained from the Jewish Social Work Foundation (Stichting Joods Maatschappelijk Werk; JMW). For example, there is a folder available in Dutch at: www.joodswelzijn.nl under the heading “Uitkeringen voor Joodse vervolgingsslachtoffers”.

© Sociale Verzekeringsbank & Pensioen- en Uitkeringsraad - Aanspraak, December 2012 21 Payment dates for 2013 Below, you will find a list of the dates on which payments will be remitted.* It may take a few days before the payment is credited to your account, depending on your bank. 15 January 15 February 15 March 15 April 15 May 14 June 15 July 15 August 16 September 15 October 15 November 16 December

If you have any questions, please call the number stated on the payment notification. * Pensions under the Extraordinary Pension Act (WBP) are paid via Stichting 1940-1945 (the 1940-1945 Foundation).