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

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

Karl Hermann Frank - War criminal.

Image
Karl Hermann Frank - War criminal. On the 22nd of May 1946 Karl Hermann Frank was hanged in public as a war criminal at Prague’s Pankrác Prison.  Czechoslovakia still used the Austro-Hungarian poll hanging method at this time.   Kurt Daluege and Frank ordered the destruction of the Czech villages of Lidice and Ležáky in retaliation for Reinhard Heydrich's assassination. In Lidice, Frank ordered the shooting of all the men, sending the women to concentration camps, and the murders of many of the children.  A few were sent to live with SS families in Germany. Here is the Associated press report of the execution, published on May 23, 1946 “FRANK IS HANGED FOR LIDICE CRIME. Eight thousand spectators, including widows of the men slaughtered at Lidice, watched without pity as Karl Hermann Frank was hanged in Pankrác Prison courtyard for having been chiefly responsible for the massacre. Those of Lidice’s widows who were able to come and widows of the 30,000 other Czechs for whose executio
Read more

The most incredible historical fact about King Edward VII

Image
The most incredible historical fact about King Edward  VII King Edward VII, had a special chair made for digging in... When Edward VII was still a young prince devoid of any responsibility for the crown, he travelled far from the British capital in search of leisure and pleasure. On one of his visits to Paris, he approached Le Chabanais, one of the best-known brothels in Paris. It was located relatively close to the Louvre Museum. Edward VII was assigned his own room whenever he frequented the brothel. The prince's main problem was his overweight. To overcome the physical impediment, the cabinetmaker Louis Soubrier made what he called "the chair of love". The chair was made in such a way that the future king could act without getting too tired. Also, the shape of the chair suggests that it was made so that the man could lie with two women at once.
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

Recovering Gallipoli’s Missing Soldiers

Image
Recovering Gallipoli’s Missing Soldiers In November 1918, Lieutenant Cyril Hughes and his graves registration section landed on Gallipoli on a bleak day that winter storms punished the rugged terrain. Hughes was confronted with a landscape of broken trenches, and rusted barbed wire. He could see the bones of hastily buried soldiers from a mile away as broad white streaks down the ravines. Hughes’ section joined the British Graves Registration Unit, which would find, identify, record, and temporarily protect every British and dominion grave, and bury any unburied dead. Hughes had a strong connection to Gallipoli, landing there in May 1915. He was twice wounded before being evacuated. Hughes regretted abandoning his comrades’ graves: ‘In 1915 we did not quite finish our job,’ he explained, ‘but, by Heaven, we would see it out this time.’ An immense task confronted Hughes’ section. Of 12,000 Allied soldiers who had died in the Anzac sector, nearly 6,000 were unburied, their remains scatte
Read more

On this day in 1944, during the Pacific Campaign of World War II, members of the U.S. Marine Corps stormed the beaches of the strategically significant Japanese island of Saipan

Image
On this day in 1944, during the Pacific Campaign of World War II, members of the U.S. Marine Corps stormed the beaches of the strategically significant Japanese island of Saipan, with a goal of gaining a crucial air base from which the U.S. could launch its new long-range B-29 bombers directly at Japan’s home islands.  Facing fierce Japanese resistance, Americans poured from their landing crafts to establish a beachhead, battle Japanese soldiers inland and force the Japanese army to retreat north. Fighting became especially brutal and prolonged around Mount Tapotchau, Saipan’s highest peak, and Marines gave battle sites in the area names such as “Death Valley” and “Purple Heart Ridge.”  When the U.S. finally trapped the Japanese in the northern part of the island, Japanese soldiers launched a massive but futile banzai charge. On July 9, the U.S. flag was raised in victory over Saipan. The brutal three-week Battle of Saipan resulted in more than 3,000 U.S. deaths and over 13,000 wounded
Read more

Miriam Steiner was just five years old when Nazi Germany and its Axis partners invaded her native Yugoslavia On This Day in 1941.

Image
“I felt crippled emotionally for a very, very long time."  Miriam Steiner was just five years old when Nazi Germany and its Axis partners invaded her native Yugoslavia On This Day in 1941.  Eventually, Miriam and her parents were arrested. While her father managed to escape, Miriam and her mother, Zora, were forced onto trains bound for Stara Gradiška, a concentration camp administered by Nazi-allied Croatian authorities. Zora was pushed in another direction as Miriam was forced onto a freight car designated for children.  "I start screaming, Mama. Mama. And she turned around, and she saw me, and I saw her. But the next moment, she was gone," Miriam remembered. For four days, Miriam and the other children were trapped in the dark car unaware of their destination. Not knowing that her mother was unable to reach her, Miriam wondered, "Where is my mother? … Why is she not with me?" When the two eventually reunited at the camp, Miriam barely recognized her mother.
Read more