Molenweg 123

With these stumbling blocks we commemorate the Zwart-Hartog family consisting of father Meijer, mother Mathilda and the children Gonnigje and Abraham. The children die together with their mother on December 3, 1942 in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Gonnigje is then 13 years old, Abraham 12 and Mathilda 54. Meijer Zwart had already been killed in the same place, 55 years old, on October 26, 42. **

We know little about their lives. Like so many other Jewish people from Zwolle, they have been wiped off the face of the earth without leaving many traces of them. Surviving relatives are unknown. Photos have not been handed down. In the archives we only find the usual data on births, marriages, deaths and addresses. On the other hand, the route to their demise can be easily followed on paper.

Meijer Zwart is born in Zwolle. He remains an only child and earns a living as a warehouse clerk. We know from the Zwolsche Courant that he is a pigeon fancier. Home address, profession and hobby place him in the working environment of Zwolle.

At the age of 42 he married July 23, 1929 in Zwolle to the 40-year-old Mathilda Hartog, born in Mijdrecht. There is some need, because daughter Gonnigje was born on September 22, followed exactly one year later by son Abraham. The children are named after Meijer's parents.
In the school year '41 -'42 Gonnigje and Abraham attend the Jewish primary school in the Voorstraat. Jewish children were no longer allowed in the classroom with non-Jewish children.

Sippora Stibbe, born in Papenstraat in 1931 with a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, recorded her childhood memories in the book How carefree is childhood. Childhood memories of a half-Jewish girl in wartime. She remembers:

It must have been in the summer of 1942 that I went with my mother to the Molenweg. Meijer Zwart lived there, with his wife and Gonnie and Appie. I didn't know them well. All I knew was that Meijer used to be a servant in my grandfather's warehouse. Moreover; who had two surnames, Meijer and Zwart. My aunt Dirkje had Meijer as last name, so I thought it was all weird.

What did I know about Gonnie and Appie? Not much. And I had not been made very clear that as a daughter of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother I was allowed to play with Jewish children. And that I could also come to their home with my mother. After all, Christians and Jews were not allowed to interact with each other at that time. Yes, what the Germans did not invent to isolate the Jewish people.

Gonnie and Appie were a little older than me. I think Gonnie 2 years, and Appie 1 year. Appie had reddish hair and freckles, I remember. They were quiet children and I was a busy person. So I didn't like it very much. What we played? I don't know anymore.

Shortly afterwards we saw the neighbors running past our street windows. We also leave the house and behind it, it must have been late summer, early autumn 1942. We lived in the Papenstraat. The entire neighborhood was located on the corner of Praubstraat, near the shop of baker Spanjer. We could just see how Meijer Zwart was the last of a group of Jews to enter the police station. Father shouted at him, “Do your best over there. Yes, Iese ”, replied Meijer. We will never know whether Meijer realized what fate was hanging over his head.

The following tracks lead to the Westerbork transit camp where Meijer is registered in early October 1942. He then 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. The dialogue at the Zwolle police station, recalled by Sippora Stibbe, probably took place when Meijer's departure for such a labor camp.

On October 2, 1942, all men from the labor camps were transferred to Westerbork. Their partners and children were brought together under the pretext of family reunification on 2 October in the gymnasium of the Celeanum gymnasium at Veerallee and deported to Westerbork the following day via the Zwolle livestock station.

Mathilda and the children are not there. Did she deliberately not respond to the call to report to the Celeanum? Was she or one of the children ill? Has a police officer from Zwolle who had to pick them up turned a blind eye? We do not know.

It means no more than a few weeks of delay. On 19 November they will still be deported to Westerbork via the Wijnbeekschool on the Goudsteeg. They no longer find Meijer there. He had already been deported to Auschwitz on October 23.

Probably Mathilda still inquired about her husband in Westerbork. She will not have received a clear answer. On November 30, 1942, she and her children are also transported to Auschwitz, along with 823 others. All women and children were killed immediately upon arrival, three days after departure from Westerbork.

An old Jewish proverb says a person always dies twice, the second time when he is forgotten. A grave sign has never been erected for the Zwart family. Their ashes lie in an anonymous place under a meadow behind the Birkenau camp. Via this Stolpersteine they return to their former place in their street, back in the Zwol community. Their names are visible again. They do not disappear anonymously in history. They have not been forgotten.

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