Suzanne Hochherr was born in Amsterdam on September 1, 1939


Suzanne Hochherr was born in Amsterdam on September 1, 1939—the very same day Nazi Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II. In May 1940, the Netherlands would also be occupied by the German army. 

Suzanne's parents, Margot and Heinz, had moved to the Netherlands from Nazi Germany in hopes of safety. But in the summer of July 1942, German authorities and their Dutch collaborators began to round up and deport Jews from throughout the Netherlands. 

Jews were often first taken to the Westerbork transit camp. Most were only there for a short time. From Westerbork, men, women, and children were deported to killing centers, ghettos, and camps—mainly Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor. The first transport from Westerbork left for Auschwitz #OnThisDay in 1942. 

Suzanne and her parents were part of this transport. Suzanne was almost certainly murdered in the gas chambers upon her arrival and alongside her mother. She was not even three years old. According to surviving records, her father was selected for forced labor but died in Auschwitz one month later. 

Regular deportations from Westerbork would continue until September 1944. In just over two years, more than 100,000 Jews were deported from the Netherlands. The vast majority did not survive. 

Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Robert Bahr

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The actual execution of Amon Goeth.

Image
This is the actual execution of Amon Goeth. He was famously depicted in the movie Schindler’s List, as firing on concentration camp prisoners with a sniper rifle from his balcony. Amon Leopold Göth  (German: [ˈɡøːt] (listen); alternative spelling  Goeth ; 11 December 1908 – 13 September 1946) was an Austrian SS functionary and war criminal. He served as the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in German-occupied Poland for most of the camp's existence during World War II. Göth was tried after the war by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland at Kraków and was found guilty of personally ordering the imprisonment, torture, and extermination of individuals and groups of people. He was also convicted of homicide, the first such conviction at a war crimes trial, for "personally killing, maiming and torturing a substantial, albeit unidentified number of people." Göth was executed by hanging not far from the former site of the Płaszów camp. The 1993
Read more

Poland, Women naked, before their execution

Image
Among the millions of photographs that are related to Nazi death camps, only four depict the actual process of mass killing perpetrated at the gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau. They show a completely different perspective, which makes them unique when dealing with visual material of the Holocaust and the Holocaust as a topic itself. They were taken inside the epicenter of the horror, from which no other visual material exists. They were taken clandestinely at the height of the Final Solution in 1944 by one of the so-called  Sonderkommando  – Jewish prisoners forced to help carry out the atrocities by removing the Nazis' victims from the gas chambers and destroying the corpses through fire or mass burial. One of the photographs shows a group of naked women; the others show the cremation of corpses. Poland, Women naked, before their execution If we agree that photography not only reflects reality, but also interprets it, than we need to take a closer look at the photographer a
Read more

GERMAN WAR CRIMINAL PETER BACK HANGING FROM A NOOSE, GERMANY, JULY 1945

Image
GERMAN WAR CRIMINAL PETER BACK HANGING FROM A NOOSE, GERMANY, JULY 1945 Photograph. Convicted German war criminal, Peter Back, hanging from a noose in a wooden scaffold at a prison, hood over his head. Official Caption: "Rome, 7/11/45 --A German pays for his crime--His head hooded with a black cloth Peter Back, convicted German war criminal, hangs in the noose at a prison near Cologne, Germany. He and two other German civilians were hanged June 29, 1945, for murdering an American airman who parachuted down near Priest, Germany, in August, 1944.--U.S. Signal Corps photo through Rome OWI--Approved by appropriate military authority (List B out) 7081."”Near Cologne, Germany. 11 July 1945 COLLECTION LEVEL:  Items from the service of Isaac "Ike" Bethel Utley, who was born in Smith Mills, Kentucky on 3 March 1920. Ike enlisted in the Army Air Corps on 19 January 1942. He was shipped overseas to the European Theatre and worked with a supply division based out of the
Read more

THE FIRING SQUAD WHO MISSED THE MAN THEY WERE EXECUTING

Image
THE FIRING SQUAD WHO MISSED THE MAN THEY WERE EXECUTING The firing squad who missed the man they were executing. In 1879, the prolonged firing-squad execution of murderer Wallace Wilkerson in Utah made news. Wilkerson was an American stockman who was sentenced to death for the murder of William Baxter. He professed his innocence until his dying day, and chose his fate by firing squad over hanging or decapitation.   When the day came, Wilkerson was seated on a chair at a corner of the jail yard about 30 feet away from the shooters and declined to be blindfolded or restrained. He said, "I give you my word... I intend to die like a man, looking my executioners right in the eye." A white three-inch paper target was pinned on Wilkerson's chest over his heart. He yelled, "[A]im for my heart, Marshal!" He drew his shoulders up as he braced for the impact, and pulled the white target pinned to his shirt above his heart. The volley didn't kill him; it j
Read more

The Alliances in the Genesis of World War I (end): The Alliances of Powers on the Eve of War

Image
The Alliances in the Genesis of World War I (end): The Alliances of Powers on the Eve of War By 1912, both the Triple Alliance and the Triple Understanding had become established characteristics of international relations.. Examining the coherence of both systems of alliance was a common issue in memorandum and official correspondence, but also in letters and journals from experts and decision-makers. Whenever a crisis in international relations arises, the current situation of alliances and the possible impacts on their future would be considered. Austria-Hungary's stance on the First Moroccan Crisis and its effect on its ally Germany; Russia's setback in 1909 following the British and French withdrawal signals; and Germany's disapproval of the Monarchy of Habsburg's bet on the crisis of the European Union the winter of 1912-1913 were the most significant examples of help alliances contributed to reducing the crisis in the last decade before 1914. The alliance between
Read more

John Lee - "The man they could not hang".

Image
John Lee - "The man they could not hang". One of hangman James Berry’s most famous (non) jobs was the strange case of John Lee at 8.00 a.m. on Monday the 23rd of February 1885 at Exeter prison. All the normal preparations were made on the gallows, set up in the coach house, but when Berry operated the lever, nothing happened.  Berry and the two warders holding Lee, stamped on the trap doors but to no avail, and Lee was then taken back to his cell whilst the release mechanism was tested. It worked perfectly.  The process was now repeated but with the same result and yet again the trap worked perfectly after Lee was removed. After the third unsuccessful attempt at 8.10 a.m., the governor stayed the hanging and the Under Sheriff travelled to London where he briefed the Home Office.  As a result Lee was reprieved later that same day by the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt and the official document sent by train late that night.  The governor immediately conveyed the news to L
Read more

NATHANIEL THE DANGEROUS RAPIST AND MURDERER

Image
In New York.... Below is Jill Garrison and her boyfriend Nathaniel White. Jill was a divorced mother of two little girls. She raised the girls on her own and really wanted a family that included a husband. She wanted a man in her and her daughters' lives and the thought of having that grew stronger.  Jill went to a bar one night where she met a man named Nathaniel. He was witty, charming, handsome, and she thought that she’d found her forever partner. He approached her and asked for her number. The two gradually managed to form such a deep connection that they became romantically involved.  He paid her a lot of attention. He went out of his way to bring her flowers, make her dinner, and even iron her nursing uniform so that she could relax. After 6 months of dating, Jill decided to allow Nathaniel to move in with her, since he practically lived there anyway, as much time he spent at her home.  Not long after Nathaniel moved in, they started having financial problems. Jill didn'
Read more

DID you know that George Joseph Smith who later became known in 1914 as the ‘Brides in the Bath Murderer’ set up a small shop at 389

Image
DID you know that George Joseph Smith who later became known in 1914 as the ‘Brides in the Bath Murderer’ set up a small shop at 389, Gloucester Road, Bristol as a second-hand furniture dealer. (near Ashely Down Road junction). A callous crook, he murdered women he had conned into marriage weeks, and sometimes just days after their wedding.  Always insuring their lives and having had them make out a will in his favour, he thought he had found a fool-proof get rich quick scheme.  A cold-hearted con-man whose crimes were motivated purely by financial gain, he was born in the East End of London in 1872 and by the age of nine had been sent to reform school for thieving. He left at 16 with a talent for exploiting women.  George Joseph Smith (January 11, 1872 – August 13, 1915) was an English serial killer and bigamist. In 1915 he was convicted and subsequently hanged for the slayings of three women, the case becoming known as the "Brides in the Bath Murders".  As well as being wid
Read more

‘Be prepared for the worst to happen any day’

Image
‘Be prepared for the worst to happen any day’ ANZAC Lieutenant Bert Crowle penned these sober words in a letter to his wife, Beatrice, from his bed in late August 1916. Days earlier, Bert had shepherded his ‘shaken’ men into no-man’s-land in a futile attack upon Mouquet Farm on the Somme.  Two machine-gun bullets had struck Bert in the thigh, with a third ricocheting off the periscope in his pocket.  Bert survived the wound.  Stretcher-bearers walked four miles across open ground to get him back to a casualty clearing station.  The station formed part of an intricate network of aid posts, dressing stations, and hospitals (pictured) that would treat over two million of the empire’s wounded in the Great War.  After three days of treatment, Bert realised things weren’t good. ‘Had I been brought in at once I had a hope,’ he told Beatrice.  The Somme soil, laced with manure, had infected the wound. Surgeons were forced to remove pounds of flesh from his buttocks to excise the gangrenous tis
Read more