A year after the postcards from Westerbork were added to Jozef’s story on the Joods Monument, the Jewish Historical Museum was e-mailed by Janet Kirchheimer, daughter of Julius Kirchheimer(1921-2011). Julius was the elder brother of Jozef and had escaped to the United States before the Second World War. Apart from the photograph of Jozef and more family pictures, Janet surprised us with a doll’s dress with the initials M.W., short for Meisjes Weeshuis, the Jewish orphans home for girls in Amsterdam. Janets mother, Margot Kirchheimer-Strauss stayed there in 1936 as a refugee from Germany, before she was reunited with her family and emigrated to the United States. The doll, which was given to her as a farewell present, was lost over time, but the dress survived, as did a shoe and a sock, which were also presented to the museum. As a memory to Jozef and the loss that has haunted her father all his live, Janet published How to spot one of us : poems.
In 2008, a few months after her last contact with the Kirchheimer family, Jelka Kröger, working at the JHM, translated the Hebrew text on a torah binder from the Jewish Community of Maastricht (The Netherlands). Much to her surprise and emotion she read the name of Jozef Kirchheimer, amidst all kind of cheerful Purim decorations. The discovery of this precious reminiscence of his younger brother caused a lot of emotional reactions in the house of Julius Kirchheimer. Thanks to the interference of the JHM and the kind cooperation of Mr. Wesly of the Jewish Community of Maastricht, the Torah binder was send to the family Kirchheimer.
