Ruben Abraham Munnikendam

In addition, a Jokos file (number 1710) on this family is at the Amsterdam Municipal Archive. Access is subject to authorization from the Stichting Joods Maatschappelijk Werk.The Jokos file reveals that a claim was lodged for compensation for valuables surrendered to the Lippmann-Rosenthal looting bank (L-claim, number 8695/4103).

My mother was Gertud Roth, but she always was called Trude. She was born on 5 January 1905 in Nitschareuth in Thüringen as daughter oft he Jewish couple Meyer Roth and Martha Rosenfeld. Anti-semtism was already widespread in Germany – dark causes of economic crises were attributed to an alleged cultural, political and economic dominance by the Jewish minority (source wikipedia website Geschichte d…

After Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933, my mother decided to flee Germany and came to Amsterdam. She said, knowing the Germans, that she knew what was hanging over us: „die bringen uns alle um“ (they will kill us all), but then met with disbelief. She found shelter with the Röttgen family in the Ruysdaelstraat in Amsterdam. They had a bookstore and formed the link between my mother and my father …

My parents then decided immediately to flee, together with grandma Spiero. They had bought false papers for 1000 guilders, by which they would like to go Switzerland. The day before depart the supplier came down to collect the documents for a correction. We never saw the papers nor the man again.

Because time was running out, it was improvising. The cleaning lady offered her house in the Atjehstra…

I have only few direct memories of my stay in Westerbork and Theresienstadt. Most of it has been completely erased, but certain impressions have remained, plus my mother’s stories. From Westerbork, I only remember the horrible dirty red cabbage that we apparently often had to eat. I has given me a lifelong aversion to red cabbage.

I also remember the beautiful lupins that bloomed there. It is curi…

My memory actually starts to run with the liberation by the Russian Red Army. Tanks and soldiers with a balalaika. Candies were thrown out of the tanks and everyone threw themselves on them. I was not allowed to touch them, and certainly not eat them. Typhus reigned, a fever from which many people still died. A good decision from my mother. In the camp also polio and TB occurred. I catched a TB in…

I also have only a few images of the retun. Because Typhyus had erupted and the railway had been largely destroyed, we were unable to leave immediately. We were finally taken to hunting lodge in army trucks by the French Red Cross. The Sudeten German name was Falckenau. I remember the dorm with spotless white bed linen. I was fascinated by the antlers on the walls.

From journey back I remember cro…