Israël de Vries

Israël de Vries was a son of Meijer de Vries and Mietje van Coevorden. He was born on 23 September 1899 in Amsterdam when his parents lived on the Oude Schans. Israël was the second child in the family, which would include a total of 6 children. Israël's older brother was Joseph, and his younger brother was Daniel and his younger sisters were Hendrika, Johanna, and Sarlina. The father of Israël, M…

The period from 28 August to 12 December 1942 was known as the so-called Cosel period. Deportation trains  made a stopover at the freight station of Cosel, located 80 km west of Auschwitz. During that stop, boys and men who were considered fit for work by the Germans, were usually forcibly separated from their families and taken off the train and put to work in the surrounding labor camps of Upper…

As a girl of about 8 years old, Betty Davids played with the 4-year younger Meijer de Vries, called Max. They lived on the 2nd floor and the de Vries family on the 3rd floor at 64 Waverstraat in Amsterdam.

My mother Betty told me that they talked to each other through an air duct in the toilet and  they had a lot of fun.

When my mother had to go to a nursing home in 2019 and I collected all the fa…