Exhibition RAZZIA from November 17-18, 1942
'Razzia 17 November 1942' is the title of an exhibition at the House of Nijmegen History, on view from Friday, Oct. 14 to Sunday, Dec. 11.
The content of the exhibition is based in part on the website www.oorloginnijmegen.nl, on which researchers Leo van den Munkhof and Willem Oosterbaan worked for years.
The website contains hundreds of articles,documents and diary reports on the persecution of Jews in Nijmegen, interviews with survivors and a list of names of about 1,800 pages with data on those persecuted.
The shocking story of the November 17-18, 1942 raid is told in all its facets in the exhibition. Dramatic facts and events are shown, photographs and personal stories of the victims are portrayed. All this is substantiated with personal letters and other documents.
For the Jews of Nijmegen, the roundup of November 17-18, 1942 was a major step on the road to annihilation. The exhibition gives a clear picture of this inky black page in the history of Nijmegen.
Opening hours of the House of Nijmegen History are Wednesday through Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.
Themes and creators
Ruti Vardi, Willem Oosterbaan, Frank van de Schoor and Frank Eliëns. Leo van den Munkhof was on vacation.
Photo: Erik van 't Hullenaar
The exhibition "Razzia Nov. 17, 1942" is divided into three
themes:
- The persecution of Jews in Nijmegen during World War II.
- The raid on the night of November 17-18, 1942
- The confiscations and looting of the property of the Jews The creators of the exhibition are:
- Frank Eliëns, author of the book 'For Jews Prohibited'
- Leo van den Munkhof, researcher
- Willem Oosterbaan, researcher, with Van den Munkhof the driving force behind the website warinnijmegen.nl
- Frank van de Schoor, curator of exhibitions
- Ruti Vardi, coordinator Open Jewish Houses | Houses of Resistance in Nijmegen
Razzia in Nijmegen
Sallie Minco, named Freddy. School photo Nijmegen
July 2, 1941, still at his old school
November 17, 1942, now 80 years ago. From eight o'clock in the evening, about 80 Nijmegen policemen, with some outside help, usually in pairs, with walking papers in their hands, walk all kinds of addresses to get about 250 Jewish residents out of their homes. No German is involved here. Several dozen people are not at home, most of them hiding that day or sometimes before. Nineteen people are rounded up and driven to the HBS on Kronenburgersingel, where the last ones arrive well after midnight. They did not sleep much that night. A few try to keep their spirits up, but for everyone it is clear that the near future will be tough.
From July 1, 1942, everything was in place in the Netherlands for the killing machine to run at full speed. On that day camp Westerbork had been put into use as a transit camp, and on July 15 the first train to the death camps had left. A few raids had already taken place earlier, in Twente, in Amsterdam, in Arnhem, and the reports were not good: death tidings had been received from Mauthausen concentration camp of almost all the deportees.
On July 9, 1942, Nijmegen mayor Van der Velden forwarded the final lists of Jewish residents to the Zentralstelle. The municipal bureaucracy and logistics were ready.
From Nijmegen that summer, individual Jewish residents were already being deported to "the East. On August 2 there was a small raid, on September 16 they hunted down those who refused to go to a Jewish labor camp. On October 3, 53 residents of Nijmegen were deported to Westerbork: 33 men from the Jewish work camps, 20 family members from Nijmegen.
Then, 6 weeks later, during a meeting at the Sicherheitsdienst in Arnhem, led by Judensachbearbeiter Bühe, it is decided to round up "ALL" Jews in most villages and towns in Gelderland.
Only Jews married to a non-Jewish partner and those with a Sperre because of work for the Jewish Council were spared.
At noon, the 196 arrested are taken by officers of the Nijmegen police by train to the little train station in the Drenthe village of Hooghalen, the last five kilometers they continue on foot to transit camp Westerbork. Soon after, most people are transferred "to the East," some to labor camps in Silesia, others are still put to work in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but most are gassed immediately in this concentration camp. Two persons were released and went into hiding, to which we owe the testimony of Fritz Tauber. Two others survive the camps, 192 are murdered.
Never after the war did anyone have to answer for preparing or carrying out this raid.
Around the exhibition and commemoration
- The exhibition "Razzia November 17, 1942" will be on display at the House of Nijmegen History from Friday, October 14 through Sunday, December 11. After that it will travel in slimmed-down form through the branches of the Gelderland Zuid Public Library.
- From October 24 through November 21, the exhibition at the House of Nijmegen History will be supplemented by an "outdoor exhibition" on Plein 1944: portraits of Nijmegen Jews in better times.
- 'Accounting for a downfall: The razzia of November 17, 1942' is the title of a book in which Leo van den Munkhof and Willem Oosterbaan describe how the razzia took place and how the Nijmegen police and the municipality were involved. It is a publication of the Stichting Stolpersteine Nijmegen and will appear in November.
