A relative remembers: ‘Izaak Bollegraaf, my uncle Ies, was my mother’s youngest brother. She described him as “a sweet boy”. As long as I remember, he was described as “Not returned.” Ies’s mother died in Rotterdam in 1932. The eldest daughter soon ran the household.
When Ies was 16 years old, he became a bell-boy in a large Rotterdam hotel. Then he was a sailor for a while. After that he learned…