Adrian Diversity Event Fund

On June 20, 1943, Hannah Goslar and Irene Butter were among more than 5,000 Jewish people arrested during a massive N**i roundup in Amsterdam. Early that Sunday morning, German and Dutch authorities sealed off parts of the city, including the Rivierenbuurt, the neighborhood where both girls lived. Anne Frank had gone into hading the previous July.

Police went from house to house, ordering Jewish families to pack their belongings and leave their homes. The arrested families were taken to assembly points before being transported to by truck to Muiderpoort Station.

Hannah, Irene, and thousands of others were then forced aboard trains bound for the Westerbork transit camp.

Today, there are two memorial plaques at Muiderpoort Station.

General plaque states: “From this station, between October 3, 1942, and May 26, 1944, more than eleven thousand Jews were transported to the Westerbork transit camp. Most of them were murdered in the extermination camps in Central and Eastern Europe.”

The Poem on the park bench reads: “Yet through their shame
a stream of long,
long-forgotten names flows.
Long-forgotten eyes?

Shall we still know
that we have forgotten them?
Have they been forgotten?”

“Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.”

Willem Arondéus was a Dutch artist and resistance fighter during World War II. After N**i Germany occupied the Netherlands, he helped create false identity papers to protect Jewish people and others from arrest.

In 1943, Arondéus and other resistance members attacked Amsterdam’s population records office to destroy documents the N**is used to identify people.

He was arrested and executed on July 1, 1943. Arondéus was openly gay. Before his ex*****on, his reported final message was, “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.”

Today we spent some time at the neighborhood that Irene Butter lived in after fleeing Amsterdam. We visited her house and school (before Jews we forced from attending public school).

This is also the neighborhood that Otto Frank moved back to and lived with Miep Gies and her husband until 1953 (just down from the school Irene attended).

Hannah Goslar’s family home and stumbling blocks are here too.

Also is a picture of the Puls truck, the Dutch, war profiteering, company that cleaned out the homes of Jews following their arrest. They cleaned out the homes of the Franks, Hassenbergs (Irene’s), and the Goslars.

It was fitting to visit Anne Frank’s home at 37 Merwedeplein this morning. Eighty-four years ago today, (July 6, 1942) the Frank family packed what belongings they could carry and walked nearly three miles to Otto Frank’s office, where they would remain in hiding for more than two years.

Today, work is taking place on the facade of the apartment complex, and the neighborhood continues to move forward. Anne’s former home is owned by a foundation that provides writers who cannot work freely in their home countries with a safe place to live and write in peace.

It was a peaceful and somber morning as we walked the same streets and explored Anne’s former neighborhood, reflecting on the ordinary life she lived here before persecution forced her and her family into hiding.

New discovery in research today: The sister map to the Amsterdam Dot Map.

This map was created by the City of Amsterdam in May 1941, one year after N**i Germany occupied the Netherlands. It shows the percentage of Jewish people living in each neighborhood.

The darker the color, the larger the Jewish population in that area. While the historic Jewish Quarter has the darkest shading, the map also shows that Jewish families lived throughout the city.

In our pop-up museum, you may have seen the dot map, which used a dot for every 10 Jewish residents. This shaded map tells the same story in a different way by showing the concentration of Jewish residents in each neighborhood instead of individual people.

The N**is used registration records and maps like these to identify Jewish communities, separate them from their neighbors, and eventually deport them. These maps remind us that information and data can be used for good or for terrible.

Eighty four years ago, on this day, July 5, 1942, Margot Frank revived her call-up letter to report for deportation to a work camp out east.

It was fitting to see the call up letter and tour the hiding secret annex today. We managed to be the first group in the house and being the first person to walk into Margot and Anne’s room was extra somber this morning. Later Margot would move into the room with her parents as another, Fritz Pfeffer would join several weeks later. Never forget!

Irene Butter and her family were detained here after being arrested in 1943. They had stayed here for several days and luckily her father was able to gain release for all of them.

Over 40,000 Dutch Jews were deported from this Theater. Named Hollandsche Schouwburg, it opened in 1892 as a theater, the building’s role changed dramatically during the German occupation. Beginning in July 1942, tens of thousands of Jewish men, women, and children were brought here, registered, and held before being transported to Weaterbork transit camp and then to concentration and extermination camps.

As you can see from the Stumbling Stones, many Jews in the neighborhood were deported and murdered at Auschwitz and Sobibor.

Today we visited the Holocaust Names Memorial. There were 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands. 107,000 were sent to Westerbork. This memorial commentates the 102,000 Jews who were deported and murdered, primarily Auschwitz and Sobibor.

Irene Butter’s father’s name was only recently added to this wall and therefore he his brick is located in a newer area.

Hannah Goslar’s Fathers brick is included.

The Frank Family.

Vincent Weijand’s brick, he was a young gay man that was murdered. The Adrian Diversity Event Fund sponsored his brick.

Have you always wanted to go to the Detroit Institute of Arts? We are hosting a class on diverse artists and then heading to Detroit to see the DIA, Eastern Market, and Detroit Historical Society. Thank you to the Stubnitz Foundation and Holiday with Heart Charity Gala for helping make this trip free.

https://www.adriandiversityeventfund.org/LenaweeDoesDetroit
For those that are members of Lenawee Lifelong Learning we are planning a trip through that group this October as well, so that might be a better option for some folks