Markt 15
Gennep
Henri Andriesse's family lived here.
Harry Andriesse,
Julchen Andriesse-Jacobsohn,
daughter Selly Andriesse,
and Julchen's father, Abraham Jacobsohn.
Harry married Julchen Jakobsohn in 1930. She originally came from Neckarbsisschofsheim in South Germany, but lived in Dortmund when she married Harry. Harry, like his father and brothers, was in the livestock trade and also kept livestock. Julchen opened a fashion store in the building where they lived, Markt 14, on the corner of Niersstraat.
In 1932 their daughter Selly was born and in 1937 a second girl, Hannelore, but who died after a month and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Gennep
to bury. Julchen was so moved that she told her neighbors, the Voss family on the Markt said: "Ich bin böse mit meinen Herr Gott, dass er mir dass Kind taken hat". In 1943 she is said to have said: "Jetzt bin ich froh und verstehe ich warum mein Herr Gott das getan hat".
Testimonials can be found on the Sobibor website. One of those testimonies comes from (old) Gennepenaar Toon van Kalmthout who tells about Selly and who traced the trail from Selly, over Vught and Westerbork to Sobibor. Toon has placed a plaque for Selly on a stone on the "avenue of oblivion" in Sobibor.
Henri Andriesse's family left Gennep on April 9, 1943
Who went on April 9?
* Market 15: ** Married couple Harry and Jülchen Andriesse-Jakobsohn, with their 10 year old daughter Selly and 81 year old father in law Abraham Jakobsohn. **
* Zandstraat 6 and Houtstraat 4-6: Married couple Max and Reina Bock-Oppenheimer and sisters Bertha and Josephina Bock.
* Zandstraat 40: Couple Jöbke and Jet Kaufman-Leefsma with 12 year old daughter Nanny.
* Spoortstraat 123: Jet van Leeuwen.
* Middelweg 32: The Sam and Johanna Andriesse- Jesse couple.
In total, 14 people boarded the train to Vught, 10, 12, 45, 47, 52, 52, 52, 63, 63, 64, 66, 67, 70 and 82 years old. On average 58 years old.
Before that time these people had to arrange the necessary things. It has been found that they have placed a lot of things with non-Jewish relations and acquaintances. Those people were called "keepers" after the war. The Kaufman family had deposited money and belongings with butcher colleague Hein Bertisen and the former maid she had been forced to fire in December 1941, Maria Temaat.
The departure to the train on April 9 has been extensively sketched by Wiel van Dinter and there are unique film images of it, made by Jan Jetten, who then lived at 30 Zandstraat. Apparently that happened in the street in all openness, diagonally opposite the house of the Kaufman family, 40 Zandstraat. This recording of the departure of Jews from their home is very special. She can be seen permanently in the Resistance Museum in Amsterdam and has been used several times in documentaries about the persecution of the Jews, sometimes in the wrong context.
We see the sisters Bock, Bertha and Josephina turn around to wave again, Max and Reina Bock, who also wave, accompanied by a lady with a bicycle.
We see the departure of the Kaufman family from the house where several generations of Kaufman had lived and worked for more than a hundred years. We see Jöbke Kaufman turning the key to the house, while his daughter Nanny pats him on the shoulder. On the way to the station, he will have to hand in the key to the police. But first the family waves to the filming Jan Jetten. They were picked up by nephew Harry
Andriesse with his family. Jacob van Tankeren said that he then worked as a plumber apprentice at the Markt with Lei Voss, the neighbor of the Andriesse family. Lei ordered him to take the family's suitcases to the train on the back of the bicycle. Did the family suspect that they would have to return those suitcases immediately upon arrival in Vught, before they were separated and placed in different barracks? Pierre Verhasselt, neighbor on the corner of Maasstraat, guided the families to the train.
What makes these images, with the knowledge of today, extra penetrating is that these people who wave so cheerfully and bravely to their fellow townsmen, who do not have to leave, will end up in a completely different world a few hours later, the cauldron of the flooding camp. Vught, where they have to hand in their luggage and are separated from each other and crammed into crowded barracks with strangers.
Jet van Leeuwen came to the station via the Spoorstraat and Sam and Johanna Andriesse joined the rest of their family from the Middelweg. Quite a few Gennep residents had gathered at the station. What were their feelings when they saw their Jewish fellow citizens getting on a train? The story goes that when the train left the Gennep national anthem "Where the Niers meet along winding roads near a castle the Maas" was sung. Pierre Verhasselt traveled to Vught. He himself would not survive the German occupation. He was arrested as a member of the resistance during a raid on September 26, 1944 and died on March 12, 1945 in Buchenwald, two weeks before Werner Hertog died there.
On April 9, 1943, after the train journey, the Gennep families went to Vught by bus via Boxtel to the camp. In the days of April 7-10, about 4,000 Jews arrived there. The population rose from 4,500 to 8,681 people, including 1,774 children.
Shortly afterwards, the remaining Jews from the provinces of Utrecht and North and South Holland were added, except Amsterdam.
The arrival in Vught must have been an immediate shock to the Gennep families. Immediately the families were taken apart and the luggage had to be returned. Only after some time was it available again, so that one could at least change clothes and underwear.
Had the Jews of Gennep, who had walked happily waving to the train on April 9, thought that they would not be able to stay in Vught for the rest of the war, which, it seemed, would end with a victory from Germany, it already appeared. quickly that they were mistaken. On May 5, 1943, a secret instruction was issued by the head of the SD, in which, among other things, the deportation of 23,000 Jews in May and June was ordered and orders were given to start the liquidation of camp Vught. The Jewish part of it had become overpopulated by the supply from the provinces. There was no work for the elderly and they walked around aimlessly.
The small children also got in the way and infectious diseases broke out below them. As a result, and due to a lack of proper food, many died quickly.
May 8: departure of the elderly
On Saturday, May 8, at five in the morning, it was announced in the barracks that that day a transport of 1,500 people would depart elsewhere, consisting of the elderly, families of more than three children, and 211 patients from the camp hospital.
This transport included six of the fourteen Gennep residents: the Max and Reina Bock couple, aged 66 and 64, the unmarried sisters Bertha and Josephina Bock, aged 67 and 63, Jet van Leeuwen, aged 70, ** and Harry Andriesse's father-in-law. , Abraham Jakobsohn, 81 years old **. In 1939 Jülchen Andriesse could have brought her father to Gennep after the Kristallnacht, now she had to say goodbye to him. Sam Andriesse's 63-year-old wife did not have to come to Westerbork. In the afternoon they had to gather at the apple site. Young people supported the elderly, and those unable to walk were brought in a wheelbarrow. There was a cold wind and it was raining. They stood there for two hours before they were taken away. The journey took a passenger train.
Those who left Vught stayed in Westerbork from Sunday to Tuesday morning. They went with the next transport, on Tuesday 11 May, to Sobibor. This transport counted 1,446 people, 180 of whom were children, and mostly the sick and elderly. Herman van Rens says about this transport:
The Limburgers among the travelers were old cattle traders, butchers and shopkeepers, members of families who had lived and worked in Limburg for many generations. They spoke their own language: Limburg dialect mixed with many Yiddish words. Perhaps the last conversations in this Limburgish-Yiddish took place on May 14, 1943, between thirsty and mortally tired old people, just before the train reached Sobibor.
The children in Vught
In the weeks that followed, regular transports with families from Vught to Westerbork took place on Saturdays, where it was announced in the night from Monday to Tuesday that they had to prepare for departure to the east. A place name was not mentioned. A month after the elderly and large families left Vught, the camp population was again curtailed. This time it was about the children who were still there.
Life for children was very difficult in Vught. After arrival, a family had to be registered first. That took some time. All baggage was also taken. Then the families were immediately separated, men, women and the children separately. Some interviews show that this sometimes happened unnoticed. Children suddenly discovered that their parents and siblings were gone. They themselves were taken to a barracks with peers, where they had to find a place in one of the three-height bunk beds. There was a barrack for the 10-13 age group. That means Selly and Nanny were able to stay together.
They sometimes saw their parents on a Sunday afternoon, at least if the permit had not been revoked because the whole camp had been punished. The children, separated from their parents, languished from homesickness and refused to eat.
The barracks were divided into a dayroom with tables and long benches and a dormitory with bunk beds, three high, with narrow corridors between them. The atmosphere was often unbearable due to a lack of fresh air. There was a kitchen with the only stove. There was also a warehouse, a coal loft and a laundry room with toilets and washbasins.
200 to 250 children per barrack. Always shouting, always noise and always busy. Every barrack had a leader. In the 10-13 year olds that was an experienced person.
The girls were divided into groups of eight with an older girl as their leader. Two groups were always together, so that two teachers cared for sixteen children. They had to make sure that the children washed and that their clothes were in order. They took care of the food and made sure the children ate it too. They also regularly checked children for lice. The barracks also had to be kept clean to prevent diseases. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Attempts were made to shield the children from what was going on in the camp. But they were always startled by the screams of the Aufseherinnen and the SS with their dogs.
The children also had to appeal, just like the elderly, early in the morning, in all weathers. Then the barracks were searched to see if no one had been left behind. Sick people with a high fever also had to go outside. Sometimes the SS men and Aufseherinnen made the children wait a long time before they started counting. Some of the children passed out. If it took too long, the kids would get noisy, get out of line and start frolicking. This meant counting over and over again. Kicking and beating took place. Children have been knocked unconscious. But there were also Aufseherinnen and SS men who spared the children.
The daily food consisted of three thin sandwiches, usually without fillings and afternoon cabbage soup, consisting of water with cabbage leaves and potatoes.
There was always too little bread and it was sometimes moldy. Sometimes only coffee or tea was dispensed once every 24 hours and people got sick from the water. The commander refused to bring separate food more suitable for children. He was not in charge of a children's camp, but a labor camp, he argued.
Food packages could be received from family and friends. Did that happen from Gennep? But in the first two weeks of April there was a "Paketsperre" in the camp, as a punishment because camps have been thrown away here and there. Also, no Red Cross packages were to be sent to Jews.
When the Jews poured in from the province in early April, the existing school was closed due to lack of space. Teachers then tried to continue teaching in the living barracks. They used the many teaching and drawing materials.
As a result, the children were in any case distracted, which was especially necessary when a children's barrack was quarantined for weeks due to infectious disease. It was often there and little could be done about it. The children were in good health when they arrived in Vught. But after a few days they were completely weakened by lack of proper nutrition and looked like they were seriously ill. Almost all children developed dysentery and were very susceptible to infection. The crowded barracks quickly caused infections. Many children developed ear infections and diarrhea. Sick barracks were set up for the children, but there was insufficient food and a shortage of medicines. The medicines brought by the Jewish doctors themselves were confiscated. In the concentration camp area there were medicaments and medicines, but not in the Jewish part. That was refused by the Germans. Any attempt to improve the situation in the children's hospital was made impossible by the German camp management.
In May, Professor Van Creveld, professor of pediatrics, visited the camp ten times. He provided medicines, insulation material, linen, blood transfusion equipment and food. But when it arrived, it was seized by the SS. Fritz Spiegel describes that there was delousing on a Sunday. Everyone had to undress and put their clothes on the bed, after which they had to walk naked, including the children, over the camp site to the burrow.
Child transport
At the end of May, the Jewish camp leadership was told that all children had to leave.
They would be taken to a special "Kinderlager". The mothers were allowed to last a few days to ensure that the care was good. However, the Jewish camp leadership did not believe this and proposed to set up a camp for the children a few miles away so that they could see their parents more often. Efforts were even made by the Jewish Council to buy barracks. But of course that was canceled.
Sam and Harry Andriesse and Jöbke Kaufman were no longer in Vught, but on the Moerdijk. They had been promised that their women and children would stay in Vught as long as they worked on the Moerdijk. Whether they could say goodbye to their wives and children when they went to the Moerdijk? This was usually not possible, because such transfers happened unexpectedly.
At the beginning of June, rumors grew and on Saturday, June 5, the barracks read the proclamation in the barracks that all children aged 0 to 16 had to leave the camp. The next day, Sunday, all children under four would leave with their mothers, the next day the other. One of the parents was allowed to accompany them. Obviously, a lot of consternation broke out. Everyone was desperate, especially the mothers whose men worked outside the camp, such as the Gennepse. Now it turned out that the promise made when they left for the Moerdijk was a treacherous lie. It was still proposed from the Jewish camp management to use buses at their own expense to have the men come to Vught for at least a few hours, but this request was rejected.
To ensure that the room went as smoothly as possible, the Jewish camp management brought in 50 extra men who did not have children of their own. It was hoped that this would prevent the SS from arranging transport. But it did not go smoothly, because of course there was enormous tension. It was a miserable procession that left camp on Sunday, June 6 in the continuous rain. Aufseherinnen laughed and SS men took pictures. But there were also SS men who hated it. Jewish Council President David Cohen was present on both Sunday and Monday.
The transport to Westerbork was done with freight wagons.
On Monday at half past four in the morning the first transport from Vught arrived in Westerbork. There people were stunned. The journalist Philip Mechanicus (1889-1944) wrote in his diary:
"* A transport of seventeen hundred and fifty Jews in livestock trucks has arrived, except for a hundred men, nothing but destitute women with her children and infants. Women and children of men who are employed on the Moerdijk. They came scrawny, exhausted after a ten-hour journey. They spat on the vicious treatment in Vught, the grueling, the humiliation ... When the women arrived in Westerbork, they wept, because of the separation of their husbands, for the fate of their children *. "
Later that Monday, the second transport, which left Vught that morning, arrived 1,400 men, women and children. In addition, Nanny and Selly and their mothers. The same will be said of them as of the first transport. They were given the best possible help and food in Westerbork.
Early in the morning of the following day, Tuesday, June 8, the people who had arrived from Vught were ordered to prepare for departure.
Mechanic saw them walking to the train, now inside the camp, and wrote about it:
They are tired and exhausted, sick and polluted. They have been partly transferred with snarling, thunder and blows and punches into the dirty cattle and goods wagons, which transport them to the east.
The course of events surrounding what has gone down in history as the Children's Transport, which is still commemorated annually in the National Monument Camp Vught, was all the more tragic because the men who worked on the Moerdijk knew nothing about the departure of their women and children.
The work of the Gennep men on the Moerdijk came to an end on Thursday 1 July 1943. They went back to Vught with 500 other Jewish men. They were replaced on the Moerdijk by non-Jewish workers. Friday July 2 they went by bus from the camp to the station (6 km). They had to wait a long time there. Food was distributed by employees of the Jewish Council. They could also give clandestine letters. At midnight the train finally left for Westerbork. Each wagon had 60 people and two troopers. On Saturday, July 3, they arrived in Westerbork at about five in the morning, after a six-hour journey. There they were received friendly and in a completely different atmosphere than in Vught. They were therefore very relieved. The troopers who had accompanied them soon wished some to meet again in Amsterdam. Before they were assigned a barrack, the registration also took several hours. Among other things, they had to go to the counter of the Liro again.
The four Gennep residents stayed in Westerbork for a week. They did not go with the next transport to Sobibor on July 6, but with the following, from Tuesday, July 13 to Sobibor. After that there would only be a transport from Westerbork to Sobibor. The following, on August 24, 1943, went back to Auschwitz.
Sobibor
The fourteen Jews who left Gennep for camp Vught on 9 April 1943 were all gassed in Sobibor. From July 15, 1942 to February 23, 1943, 51 transports, with a total of 46,555 people, went from Westerbork to Auschwitz. The next transport after February 23, 1943, that of March 2, 1943, went to Sobibor. Eighteen more followed, until July 20, 1943, a total of 34,313 people. This included on May 11, June 6, and on July 13, four Gennep residents.
For a long time little was known about Sobibor, while in a year and a half, between April 1942 and October 1943, hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered. The reason for this obscurity may be that the camp was completely dismantled at the end of 1943 and hardly any traces of it were visible afterwards. But a more important reason seems that there were hardly any survivors.
Sobibor was gassed from April 1942. When in the autumn of 1941 the idea of the 'final solution of the Jewish problem' could only be achieved within the Nazi top, it could only be achieved by killing all Jews, an organization was also set up that concentrated it in a few places would execute.
In addition to the already existing Auschwitz and Chelmno, this had to be done in much smaller camps to be built, where no forced labor took place, but where as many Jews as possible could be murdered on an industrial scale as efficiently as possible.
Auschwitz was in the part of Poland annexed to Germany in 1939, the camps still to be built came in the rest of the conquered part of Poland, the so-called General-Government. As the leader of the project, which would be called Aktion Reinhard, Odilo Globocnik was appointed on October 13, 1941, a man who had shown himself to be brutal and corrupt in previous positions. The same day it was decided to build Sobibor. Treblinka and Majdanek would follow later. These locations were chosen because they were on a railway line and in a sparsely populated area. Sobibor was in a barely inhabited swamp area. In April 1942 the construction of the camp was ready for the first gassings to take place. As mentioned above, staff were recruited from former employees of the T4 project, which had stopped in August 1942, which had been aimed at getting rid of another group that was harmful to the Nazis, mentally and physically disabled. Now they were involved in a much larger project, the removal of millions of people from the face of the earth who were not only harmful but also life-threatening, Jews. Globocnik expected that with the knowledge and experience of these personnel, the gasification process in the camps set up for this purpose would be "restlos". And what was also important, they managed to remain silent.
When it was decided in February 1943 that the Dutch Jews would no longer go to Auschwitz because it was full, as of April 1942, more than 100,000 people from other countries had been murdered in Sobibor immediately upon their arrival. Some of the transports were taken from the group on arrival to perform forced labor in surrounding camps or to assist in the murder process in the camp itself. This happened to nearly a thousand of the Jews brought in from the Netherlands.
Eighteen of them survived, two of whom escaped after the July 1943 uprising.
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