Emanuel Wijsobeek was a Jewish PSV player who was in the resistance and was murdered in Auschwitz extermination camp. A street name has already been named after him in Eindhoven. And for one of the houses he lived with his family, there has been a so -called Stolperstein since May. Now ‘Maan’, what his call sign was, is recalled in the recently published book ‘PSV during the Second World War’.
His son Andy (81) is very proud of the tribute, but he also says: “I have had a fantastic life. The only thing I missed is my father. Although I also have to say that I did not suffer from it.”
Emanuel Wijzeek was born in The Hague in 1909. As a twenty-year-old he moved to Eindhoven to live in the shadow of the Philips Sportpark, which was then the name of the PSV stadium.
Wijzeek does not let grass grow on it: within three days he will register as a member of the PSV football branch. Until recently, Andy, who himself had been active in hockey for decades, never knew this. Joris Kijer, the writer of the book about PSV in the Second World War, surprised him with it.
Wijsobeek Senior would only remain connected to PSV as a member for two years. He never achieved the first team. That he only played in Eindhoven for so short had everything to do with his profession: representative. Through that position, Wijsbeek travels a lot through the country.
In 1932 Wijsbeek returned to Eindhoven and married Maria Sanders. They have two children. In 1939 Wijsbeek cannot escape mobilization for the Dutch army, which is needed due to the threatening war. On May 10, 1940, the day that German soldiers invade our country, Wijsbeek sends a letter to his wife and children. To support them.
“Show you resolute, then everything will be fine again.”
He writes: “Mama, stay calm. (…) If you show the children decisively, with God’s help, when we have overcome the intruder, everything will be fine again. “
Wijsobeek does not know what is hanging above him, although he seems to spring the dance because he was married to a non-Jewish woman. Men who had entered into a mixed marriage are saved by the occupier. His brother Salomon cannot escape the German murder machine. He dies in the Sobibor extermination camp.
‘Moon’ puts his life in the Waag scale by committing acts of resistance: he arranges, among other things, hiding addresses, false papers and boning cards.
Letters that were in a suitcase and that are kept by Andy shows that his father himself had at least one young, Jewish person in hiding. “He was really a resistance hero” A doctor from Eindhoven betrayed him and on May 15, 1944 Emanuel Wijsobeek was murdered in Auschwitz.
“Dearth darlings, I’m going to go with my head and hug you.”
One of his last signs of life was a letter that was sent to his wife and children from the Westerbork transit camp. He writes: ‘Dearth darlings, I go with my head lifted and embrace you in mind a thousand times and another thousand times’.
Nine days after father Wijzeek was killed, Andy is born. In the house on Heezerweg where his father was picked up to be taken to Scheveningen and then to Westerbork. Andy is still alive the only one in the family. “I have always pushed the war away from me, because I don’t want anything to do with it. But I am very proud of my father.”
What are Stolpersteine?
Spread over Eindhoven – and also 28 other municipalities in our province – are so -called Stolpersteine. These stumbling stones are laid in the sidewalk for houses where Jews lived in the Second World War before they were deported and killed. They are there to commemorate these victims.
The stones were conceived by Gunther Demning. This German artist has been placing Stolpersteine all over the world since 1992 so that Jewish victims of the Second World War will not be forgotten. They are called Stolpersteine, because according to Demning you stumble over it with your head and heart. Moreover, you have to bend to read the text.
The stones are made of concrete and are 10 by 10 centimeters in size. There is a picture of brass on the top. The name, date of birth, deportation date and place and date of the death of the commemorated person can be read on this.