550 Jews lived in Assen before the Second World War. Only 25 returned from them. On Sunday, the Drents Archief, together with the Asser Historical Association, stands still during open Jewish houses. In various places in the city where Jewish residents lived and worked during and just after the Second World War, there are memorials.
During city walks with a guide, who leave at 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. from the Drents Archief, the stories of Jewish Assen come up again during the Second World War. “We try to tell the experiences of the Jewish Assenaren during the Second World War, sketch what these people have experienced,” says Tibbe Breimer, Coordinator of Stadsgidsen of the Asser Historical Association. The route runs through various parts of the former Jewish neighborhood, such as the Rolderstraat. Where most of the Jewish residents of Assen lived and worked.
Only 25 of the 550 Jewish Assenaren survived the war. “That is very sad,” says Breimer. The route runs, among other things, along ‘the wall that saw everything’. On October 2, 1942, 234 Jewish inhabitants were gathered here during the Grote Razia and then be taken away. “A very impactful story,” says Breimer.
During open Jewish houses, Anna Nieweg and her foster daughter Lotte Auszenberg, among others, are commemorated. Nieweg was born in 1894 in Usquert in Groningen. She marries Berend Davidson and starts living together in Assen. After 18 years, they divorced in 1938. In the same year, Nieweg records 7-year-old Lotte Auszenberg as her foster daughter, a German refugee from Cologne.
Anna works as a teacher in Assen, but because she is Jewish, she loses her job. She goes to work in the Rolderstraat at the school for Jewish children. Anna and Lotte are picked up during the large raid. Anna is deported to Auschwitz on October 19, 1942. Three days later she is killed. Lotte was transported from Westerbork on 2 March 1943. Transport will arrive in Sobibor on 5 March. All deportees, including Lotte, are murdered in the gas chambers shortly after arrival.
History student Nina Venema from Hoogersmilde tells the story of Anna Nieweg and Lotte Auszenberg Sunday at the Oude Synagogue at Groningerstraat 14 at 11.15 am and 2 pm. “The story shows that they were very normal people who experienced terrible things.”
Leida van Tijn, Salo Boekbinder and Ido Wolf are also commemorated during open Jewish houses. In 1942, Tijn and Boekbinder flee as a newlywed couple to the safe part of France, but they are still arrested there. Salomon ends up in Sobibor through the French transit camp Drancy and is killed there. Leida survives the war and returns to Assen. She marries Ido Wolf.
Hélène Wolf, the daughter of Leida and Ido tells their story on Sunday at 2 p.m. during a commemoration at Prins Hendrikstraat 1a. The Wolf family lived in this house until they were put out of their home in 1942. They had to make way for the future commander of the Westerbork transit camp, Albert Konrad Gemmeker.
In addition to the city walks, three millimeters of films about Jewish Assen are shown in the Drents Archief between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. The film was made before the war by Samuel Joseph Wolf, the grandfather of Hélène Wolf. It is also possible in the Drents Archief to ask questions about their own family members during the Second World War.
The commemorations and film can be attended for free and without registering.