Hendrika Agsteribbe-Bouwman

Anna Agsteribbe and Emanuel Agsteribbe were brother and sister. They were born in Amsterdam, respectively on 5 April 1914 and 11 March 1918 as children of Willem Agsteribbe and Bertina van West. Anna was the second and Benjamin the fourth of the five children in this family.

Anna had become a seamstress and Benjamin a tailor. From 1935 they lived at Nieuwe Herengracht 159, where their parents ran …

Deportation periods in 1943

Apart from the "Sobibor period" (2 March to 20 July 1943), two deportation periods can be distinguished in 1943, viz. the period from 11 January to 2 February 1943, in which 9 transports left directly for Auschwitz, viz. 8 from Westerbork and 1 from Apeldoorn (for the sake of brevity to be called "Spring transports 1943"), and the period from 24 August to 16 November 1…

From the end of August 1943 to mid-May 1944, between 150 and 200 prisoners from Vught concentration camp worked at Gilze-Rijen airfield every week. They were part of the so-called Buitencommando Breda of Camp Vught. Their job was to build out the airfield, but after bombings they also had to fill craters and defuse unexploded bombs.

Such outside commandos were also employed at other German militar…