Shortly after the German invasion of the Netherlands, Benjamin Velleman, his wife Reintje Betsy Anholt, and their only child Ruben Emanuel Velleman, committed suicide. Gemeentearchief Den Haag. Overlijdensaktes
It is still an extremely sensitive topic: suicide during the Second World War. Historians have not known what to do with it for a long time. What is the place of suicide bombers in war history?
Remarkably little has been written on this subject and there seems to be no list of names or memorial books at all. The Digital Monument (www.joodsmonument.nl) offers a place where relatives, sometimes for …