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In Memoriam - Lezecher

From all West-European countries the Netherlands was the country where the Jewish population has been hit hardest by persecution (1940-1945). While in France 25% of the Jewish population has been killed and 40% in Belgium and in Norway, the percentage of the Dutch Jewish population reaches 75%. In all of Europe, Poland, Greece and the Netherlands are the countries with the highest percentage of Jews who are killed.

Before World War Two there were about 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands, and about 20,000 descendants from marriages between Jews and non-Jews. Most people of the latter group survived the German occupation. The systematic persecution of Jews took place within the group of 140,000 people who were labeled “Volljuden” by the Nazis. Over 105,000 of them were deported, mainly to Auschwitz and Sobibor. Only a few thousand people survived the camps. Together with those who survived the occupation in hiding, they constituted the group of some 35,000 survivors in 1945.

The War Graves Foundation in The Hague gave us access to the data regarding all Jews deported from the Netherlands for whom no grave is known. The names and information have been published earlier in the memorial books of the War Graves Foundation, in order to commemorate those who do not have a grave in a proper way. .

Not all existing memorial books are relevant for this purpose: the In Memoriam database is based on the volumes 4 until 33 (included) where the names of the over 100,000 Jewish compatriots who were murdered during the Second World War are mentioned.

The data have been assembled by the Red Cross, the Dutch Institute for War Documentation and the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs. They have been checked at the Population Registers. In spite of this there appeared to be inaccuracies and incomplete information in the original memorial books and in the concise volume that appeared in 1995. These inaccuracies are now being corrected by the War Graves Foundation itself and by a group of volunteers consisting of genealogists, now grouped in the Akevoth Foundation. An improved version will replace the current list in the future.

In the volumes 4 until 33 included, the names of Jewish persons whose fate was/is unknown have also been included.

Through remarks by family members, internal research during the past years, but also through publications such as that of the Belgian Memoriaal, it appeared that many tried to escape via Belgium and France. Unfortunately, they have been arrested there and were transported. This regards Dutch Jews who were mostly killed in Auschwitz. In order to honor their memory as well, these complementary data have been included in In Memoriam.

Even when the grave of a person is found, for example by the discovery of a mass grave, the information regarding this person will not be removed from IM. They will not be removed from the memorial books either.

The Jewish victims of whom a grave (mostly individual) is known, are not included in IM. This is a result of the original starting point of the memorial books.

The In Memoriam-database is a dynamic database, not only because of the corrections, but also because of the additions. The database is updated by the Akevoth Foundation.