Michel Joëls

Michel Joëls was a son of Mozes Joëls and Sophie Levy. He was married to his cousin Elisabeth Joëls who died in a car accident in Belgium in 1938.
Michel Joëls was a member of the city council of The Hague for the Vrijzinnig-Democratische Bond. After the Dutch capitulation in May 1940 he took his own life. He wrote a farewell letter to The Hague mayor De Monchy from which the following quotation:
…

It is still an extremely sensitive topic: suicide during the Second World War. Historians have not known what to do with it for a long time. What is the place of suicide in war history?

Remarkably little has been written on this subject and there seems to be no list of names or memorial books at all. The Digital Monument (www.joodsmonument.nl) offers a place where relatives, sometimes for the firs…