Fritz Tauber, testimony of the night of November 17/18, 1942
Fritz Tauber (1906-2004) was a Jewish emigrant who fled from Austria to the Netherlands in 1938 because of the rise of Nazism. He found work as a technical draftsman at Smit Transformers in Nijmegen. During the raid on the night of November 17-18, 1942, he and his wife Helene were arrested and deported to Westerbork. The director of Smit urges the Germans to release him: "Without Fritz we cannot make transformers." With success, on November 21 Fritz and his wife are released. Some time later they go into hiding in Friesland. There Tauber writes the booklet "Around Westerbork" about the persecution of Jews, the November raid in Nijmegen and Westerbork. In Friesland the Taubers experienced the liberation.
Fritz Tauber, testimony of the night of November 17/18, 1942
Fritz Tauber is one of the few survivors of the raid on the night of November 17-18, 1942 in Nijmegen. He recorded his experiences of that night in a booklet. On this page some quotes. "Rumors had long circulated that the provincial towns would be made Jew-free, but in our indestructible optimism we always pushed the thought of that fact back into the background."
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"Nijmegen, November 18, 1942, a quiet autumn night, chilly and dark. Everyone is glad to be at home in a heated cozy room, comfortably seated reading a good book or having an animated conversation with good friends. The latter was also the case with us, unsuspecting what would happen to us a few hours later. It was an evening that was a delightful end to a hard day's work. We let our guests out in good spirits. We were just about to retire when suddenly the bell rang alarmingly and ominously. Overwhelmed, a guest returned, a good friend of my wife, excitedly telling us that she had seen heavily packed Jews under police escort in the street and that she had learned that all Jews not in possession of a so-called 'Sperrstempel' would be picked up this night."
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"We still had the courage (...) to go to bed. But not for long: at a quarter past twelve the bell rang again. The front door was opened by the landlady and after exchanging some words downstairs, which were unintelligible to us, we heard heavy steps coming up the stairs. I remember with terrible clarity how the footsteps came closer and closer to our bedroom and how, by crawling under the covers, holding my breath, I tried to delay, postpone the dreaded moment. My heart beat in my throat, when without further ado the bedroom door was opened and the light was turned on. With a rough "Get up and come with me" we were greeted."
Personal ID of Fritz Tauber.
Photo: Camp Westerbork Collection
Tauber and his wife are transferred to the Municipal HBS on Kronenburgersingel, which serves as a staging area.
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"About four in the morning, all the victims were gathered, nearly 200 young and old, poor and rich, humble and seen, able and incompetent, all indiscriminately in deep misery and despair."
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In the morning, around six o'clock, the group was whisked off to the train station in Nijmegen.
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"We were locked in three passenger cars. Each door was guarded by an officer. Exhausted, we dropped onto the benches, not knowing the purpose of our journey. Westerbork, Vught, Germany or Poland, no one knew where. Unnoticed, morning twilight had turned into a light November day. Life at the station took its usual course, people came and went, trains arrived and left. No place gives the illusion of freedom more than a station: in all directions the rails crawl, expanding, branching, reconnecting, a spider's web woven of steel, traversing the globe. On all these rods the trains ride off into the distance, towards freedom. We were at a dead end and so were our lives. "
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"Distracted by the conversations, time flew by and by ten o'clock we were moved from the siding onto a main track. We did not yet know the purpose of our journey. I had a window seat so that I could look out onto the platform. The windows had to remain closed and on either side of the wagons police patrolled, in each wagon there was at least one more officer, the doors were locked. On the platform, people stood watching curiously or indifferently, embarrassed or delighted. A young man excitedly walked up and down the wagons until he found his girl, a young fun and cheerful thing who had also been rounded up with her mother. They could not marry as a result of the Jewish laws. Before our eyes a touching love drama played out. She stood inside at the closed window and he outside on the platform. Many sweet words, promises of fidelity, good wishes for the future were exchanged in the short time we remained on the platform. How bravely the girl managed to control herself, who kept staring into the boy's eyes, until the train slowly left the station. But with that her strength was also broken, she fell groaning into the lap of her mother, who tried to comfort the girl by gentle caressing. Even a mother cannot find the words to soothe a grief so deep."
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Later that day, the train reached its destination, Hooghalen station, near Westerbork transit camp.