Towards the end of September 1942, Dad felt ill and stayed in bed. He had severe stomach pains. According to the GP Dr. Sanders, there was nothing to indicate an illness. It was caused by nerves; the tension also became unbearable. That last week, Dad was forced to do groundwork in “Het Amsterdamsche Bosch”.(forrest). He was not allowed to use public transport! He would have turned 64 on 9 October!
He couldn't cope and came home in the evening desperately ill. He stays in bed for a few days and then on 2 October 1942, it is Friday, he goes back to the Amsterdamsche Bosch. Once there, the Jewish men who were employed were surrounded by German police thugs, put into raid cars and transported to the Polderweg - which was then a barren area and surrounded by barbed wire - where they had to stay.
The raids are in full force: more and more people are pouring onto the site. Meanwhile, Mom and Maurice are waiting anxiously at home. At seven o'clock a long line of green police cars drives into the neighborhood and the black and green police start to take the Jewish people out of their homes. They are all taken to the Polderweg. Mom and Maurice are also there. I can only imagine what they were doing at this point. It was their last journey through their well-known streets. We would never see them again.
It became chaos on the Polderweg: everyone was looking for everyone. What happened there was inhuman, unnatural and indescribable. The next morning, Saturday 3 October, my sister Clara came to us before seven o'clock to tell us what had happened.
We were in circumstances where we could expect the worst to happen every day, but now that we knew that those devils also had our innocent parents and youngest brother in their clutches, our world fell apart. That day I cried as a grown man.
I received the last sign of life on Monday 5 October: it was a postcard that Mom wrote after they had to spend the whole night on the bare grounds in the open air! A dog is allowed to spend the night in a cage. But those Krauts always came up with other insane tortures to inflict on the Jewish people. Despite the tension and emotions, Mom still had her wits about her. She had made sure that if she had the opportunity, she would write immediately and she did so. At Bussum railway station she was able to throw the postcard out of the train and a well-meaning person put it in the letterbox.
Posted on 29 December 2023 by the editors of the Jewish Monument with permission from surviving family.