Acknowledgements
Several people have contributed to the Monument. Professor Emeritus Isaac (Ies) Lipschits deserves the first mention, since the Monument was an initiative of his. After retiring as a professor at Groningen University, Ies Lipschits began to research the restitution of legal rights to Jews after the Second World War, publishing his findings in the book De kleine sjoa. Joden in naoorlogs Nederland [The Little Shoah: Jews in the postwar Netherlands] (Zutphen 2001). The many sources he found during that project gave him the idea of creating an overview that would offer greater insight into the lives of the Jews from the Netherlands who died in the Shoah, who were more than one hundred thousand in number. That idea was the origin of the Digital Monument. We are deeply grateful to Ies Lipschits, not least because of the 7,000-plus biographical texts that he provided from 2004 to 2007.
Next, we would like to thank Professor Wout Ultee, Professor dr Henk Flap, Dr Peter Tammes, and Dr Marnix Croes, who allowed us to use their collections of register lists. The doctoral thesis by Tammes and Croes based on these data, ‘Gif laten wij niet voortbestaan’ Een onderzoek naar de overlevingskansen van joden in de Nederlandse gemeenten [‘We will not allow poison to survive.’ Study of the chances of survival of Jews in Dutch cities and towns, 1940-1945] (Amsterdam 2004) is available in digital form on the web.
Joods Maatschappelijk Werk (Jewish Social Work) made it possible to use the JOKOS files. These files form one of the central archives on which the Monument is based.
Other useful data sets were provided by Dr Bert Jan Flim, Sytzke de Jong, Cees Haverhoek, Phocas Kroon, and Ina de Paauw. Staff members of the Nationaal Monument Kamp Vught supplied us with copies of the Sterbebücher (death registers).
Two focus groups, the first consisting of family members of Shoah victims and the second dealing with educational issues, contributed to discussions of the Monument and gave useful advice at an early stage. The members of the first group were H.J. van den Broeke, D.P. Cohen Paraira, J. Herzberg, H. van het Hoofd, S. Lachmann, O. de Leeuw, and M. van de Vathorst. The members of the second group were I. Abram, R. Elsas, A. Huisman, E. Koops, N. Markus, and F. Rijxman.
Professor Hans Blom and Professor Peter Romijn at the NIOD reviewed the section on the persecution of the Jews and the glossary and made useful corrections and additions.
Peter de Hoo, in addition to making a donation towards the construction of the website, generously allowed us to make video recordings in his home on Spanjaardslaan in Leeuwarden for the virtual tour.
Finally, we are very grateful to everyone who sent additions and corrections to the Digital Monument.