Who are in this Bossche and hundreds of other photos of Jews in the Netherlands, who had to wear a Star of David on their clothing during World War II? That is what the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies would like to know. That is why the public is now being called on for help.
The NIOD has about 350 photos on the website imagebankwo2.nl of which little is known about the people portrayed. Anyone can leave information with photos. These are very diverse photos about which the institute wants to know as much as possible. Think of names, but also their backgrounds. Where do they come from and how have they led their lives?
There are at least three photos made in Brabant among them. One of them shows eighty students and teachers from the Jewish Lyceum in Den Bosch.
Former history teacher René Kok from Den Bosch previously investigated the backgrounds of this school photo. But there are also countless open questions for him. “We are still missing a number of names. It is quite complicated to find out who is in this photo from 1942. That is because many families and families never returned after they were deported.”
With today’s knowledge, Kok calls the apparently cheerful school photo ‘dramatic’. In August 1941, all Jewish children of the Germans had to drop out of regular schools. That is why special Jewish schools were established. By mid-1943, almost all Dutch Jews had either been deported to the east or went into hiding.
“I think that 80 percent of the people in the photo did not survive. That is the tragic fate of this special photo. At the time that photo was taken, schoolmates had already been taken to concentration camps or were in hiding” , says Cook.
According to the former history teacher, there are eight people in the photo whose name is unknown. “We have a face. Now they deserve a name. If they have one, they still exist.”
In addition to the Bossche school photo, there are two more ‘Brabant’ photos on the NIOD site.