Louise Sorensen |
30-01-2014 |
On my father’s side: he brought my aunt Sofie Wittmann-Stein, her husband Emanuel and son Friedrich from Vienna to the Netherlands after the annexation of Austria. In 1942 they were deported and murdered in Auschwitz; other members of his family were deported from Vienna and murdered. He also took my grandmother Chana Stein to the Netherlands, but she died in the Jewish Home (Joodse Invalide) in Amsterdam before the Nazis deported all the occupants of this institute.
My grandfather Izaak van Dam was a businessman, who together with my grandmother owned the hat firm Maison van Teeffelen in Rotterdam.
He was murdered in Soribor at the age of 71, as was his son Mozes (my uncle Maurits) with his wife Rachel and small daughter Emma Rosetta (infamous ‘Children’s Transport’ from Vught to Sobibor), while his daughter Rosetta (my aunt Ro) was murdered in Auschwitz. According to the In Memoriam book a total of around 80 members of the extended Van Dam family (originally in Dordrecht since around 1750); including great-grandfather Mozes van Dam, who, after being taken in the middle of the night from his house in Rotterdam and forced to walk to the station, died in Westerbork shortly before his deportation at the age of almost 96.
My grandmother Emma died just before the Netherlands was invaded, at the age of 59.
My mother, father and sister and I spend a total of around 2.5 years in hiding and survived the Shoah.
Louise Sorensen
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