Diezerweg 22-1
Zwolle
With this stumbling block we commemorate Maurits Vecht. He was 44 years old when he was murdered in Auschwitz on or about February 28, 1943. Maurice was unmarried. **
Maurits Vecht was born on February 28, 1899 in Elburg. His parents were the merchant Abraham Vecht (1863-1938) and Helena Rubens (1871 -1929). Earlier, on May 17, 1897, his brother Jacob Hartog was born. Jacob emigrated to the Dutch East Indies and died at a young age on February 24, 1933 in Surabaya. Maurice's parents and brother did not have to experience the horrors of World War II.
Jacob and Maurits attended primary education at a public school in Elburg, the Institute of Kinsbergen. Both boys are in a school photo from 1908. This is the only known photo of Maurice.
Maurits made a living as a groundworker. In mid-1942 he lives at Diezerweg 22-1, just outside Diezerpoort. This house was demolished in 1977 and the new street construction also changed the street. Maurits' house was approximately at the current Hoekstraat 19.
The next track leads to the Westerbork transit camp, where Maurits was registered as a camp resident between 3 and 5 October 1942. He probably comes from a Dutch labor camp for Jewish men. It is unknown which camp. In the summer of '42, dozens of Jewish men from Zwolle were forced to work in camps in Overijssel and Friesland.
After a week in Westerbork, Maurits left on Monday October 12, 1942 with transport 27 to Auschwitz. The train with 1711 people on board arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau on October 14. After selection on the platform, 351 men - Maurice was one of them - and 61 women were admitted to the labor camp. The remaining 1,291 people were murdered in the gas chambers. For Maurice it was only a postponement of death. The Nazis pressed into the system of "Vernichtung durch Arbeit", destruction by labor, the last labor force from their victims. Due to the excessive labor, poor care and abuse, most forced laborers survived for only a few months. This also applies to Maurits Vecht.
We know little about Maurice's life. Many other Jewish people from Zwolle have also been wiped off the face of the earth without leaving many traces of them. Yet they have not been forgotten, as grandniece Sophia Schönher put it at the unveiling of the Stumbling Stone on June 30, 2017:
"The connection remains"
Dear Maurits Vecht,
We never knew you,
yet we love you.
Memories of you,
while there have been no moments
that can be remembered.
Thinking of you how you were
when we never knew you.
Thinking of you,
while we never saw you.
Murdered in a horrific way,
far away from your brother and friends.
No
Known, we don't have you
We haven't seen you
We've heard of you.
No
Known, we don't have you
But we hope that wherever you are
you know we miss you.
Although we never saw you.
Although we never knew you.
So you are full of life,
and suddenly that life is over.
A dignified farewell was not taken from you then.
We are grateful for the opportunity to remember you this way now.
Memory of you
The connection remains
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