(Jewish Group) This Amsterdam neighborhood was once inhabited by Jews. None are left to celebrate...

[Behind the Aegis]

This Amsterdam neighborhood was once inhabited by Jews. None are left to celebrate its centennial

Outside 58 Weidestraat in Amsterdam’s Betondorp district, two brass stones lie set into the sidewalk. Known by the Dutch as stolpersteine, or “stumbling stones,” the square plaques are engraved with the names of Jews who moved to this neighborhood upon its creation after the First World War and were deported during the Second. Herman Richard Bonn and Anna Bonn-Cauveren, 33 and 32 respectively, died at Buchenwald and Auschwitz — Herman just three months shy of Amsterdam’s liberation.

Only a few other stolpersteine exist in this development of 1,900 homes. Many more are laid in the historically Jewish neighborhoods further north, and some 70,000 exist across Amsterdam. But the coming years could see as many as 230 arrive in Betondorp. With the enclave approaching its centennial, local organizers have begun to collect stories, educate their neighbors and appreciate their community’s role in the city’s Jewish history.

What took them so long? For one thing, Amsterdam has been shamefully slow to acknowledge its participation in the Holocaust. The city unveiled its first significant memorial — the Daniel Libeskind-designed National Holocaust Names Monument — only in 2021, outside the old Jewish Quarter.


By Getty Images
Names Memoria;: The name of German-Dutch diarist Annelies Frank appears on a stone among other victims at the Holocaust Memorial of Names in Amsterdam.

What’s more, Betondorp is a small, remote district. Originally, that was a unique selling point. Amsterdam’s rapid expansion between the world wars lured many people from the congested core to the newly annexed outskirts — specifically this “concrete village” (the literal translation from Dutch) built by modernist visionaries. At one point, Betondorp had the sixth largest Jewish community in Amsterdam. But in the latter half of the 20th century, as the zeal for socialist housing waned, the development lost much of its visibility and influence.

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[TheRealNorth]

1. Sadly

During the Nazi -occupation, there were a lot of Dutch collaborators that betrayed their fellow countrymen and helped the Germans round up their Jewish neighbors rather than oppose the fascists.

A lesson that we should not forgot given resurgence of fascism.