Hasebroeklaan 13

The occupation of Sigfried Mathijs Cohen is listed as correspondent at a furniture factory. He married Elisabeth Wijsenbeek on 28 May 1931 in Amsterdam. A year later, on May 12, 1932, their daughter Johanna Rosette was born. The family came to live in Bilthoven from Amsterdam on 1 July 1939, here at number 13 Hasebroeklaan. They lived here until June 1942. In 1941 they were looking for a holiday address and placed an advertisement for it in the Het Joodsche Weekblad of 27-6-1941 with the text:

Liberal Israelite couple, with a 9 year old daughter, are looking for a good pension for the month of August. Quote letters: Cohen, Hasebroeklaan 13, Bilthoven

In 1941, the Jews in the Netherlands increasingly had to deal with freedom-restricting measures. In mid-1942, the Jewish residents of the municipality of De Bilt were obliged to move to Amsterdam and were registered there in the population register. In Amsterdam they had to deal with far-reaching restrictions on freedom. After a call to report, after a house search or after a raid, Kamp Westerbork became the next station for them on the road to destruction. Whether the Cohen family also went to Amsterdam is unclear, at least there is no registration of them there in the population register. At the end of 1942, the abbreviation VOW is noted on the personal cards that have been preserved in Jaglust, our town hall. That abbreviation stood for: left unknown where.

We have not been able to find out what happened to them in the period from June 1942. They may have been in hiding. Be that as it may, on 31 July 1943 they arrived in Camp Westerbork. Arrested people in hiding were classified as criminal cases and ended up in the so-called penal barracks in Camp Westerbork and were deported more quickly. I have not been able to find out whether the Cohen family has been in the penal barracks, but they were soon deported. The names Sigfried Mathijs Cohen, Elizabeth Minnette Henriette Cohen-Wijsenbeek and Johanna Rosette Cohen can be found on the transport list of 24 August from Westerbork to Auschwitz. Further documentation is lacking and we have to assume that she was murdered in the gas chambers on 27 August immediately after arrival in Auschwitz, aged 51, 50 and 11 years.

Johanna Rosette may be seen in a class photo of the kindergarten class of the Montessori school in Amsterdam. As a memorial to the persecution of the Jews, the work of art In Memoriam, made by Willem Volkersz. This work includes a number of stylized suitcases bearing the names of Jewish victims. On one of those suitcases we find the name Johanna Rosette Cohen.

To date, I have not been able to trace any next of kin. Father Sigfried had a brother Albert Emanuel Cohen who survived the war. He passed away in 1970 and according to his obituary he had children and grandchildren. However, it has not yet been possible to get in touch with any of them.

Following the announcement of the unveiling of these stumbling blocks today, a local resident contacted us. She may have known Johanna Rosette. All in all, the story of the Cohen family in the Hasebroeklaan has not yet been fully written.

By placing these stumbling blocks and by telling the story, we want to contribute to ensuring that Sigfried Mathijs Cohen, Elisabeth Minette Henriette Cohen-Wijsenbeek and Johanna Rosette Cohen and the unimaginably great injustice that was done to them do not fade into oblivion.

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