Joel Schaap

The family Schaap committed suicide in the night of 13 to 14 May, 1940 in their house at the Noordeinde 86 in The Haque. The police found 4 glasses and 4 papers with a powder.

Joel Schaap owned a jewelry store at the Noordeinde, 86. The family lived above the shop.

Schaap told his people several times that if the Queen leaves the country in connection with the danger of war he would commit suicide…

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…