Bernhard Klingenstein

On the 6th of July 1938 Bernhard Klingenstein and Adelheide Stein moved to Würzburg. On the 7th of March 1939 they moved to Amsterdam, Amstelkade 130 I. That’s the address where their son Josef Klingenstein and his family lived.
The family of Josef Klingenstein and Klara Weichselbaum arrived on the 14th of June 1938 in Amsterdam from Hardenberg. Their first address in Amsterdam was Sarphatistraat …

The family Klingenstein, Josef and Klara, the parents of Josef, Bernard Klingenstein and Adelheid Stein, their stepdaughter Sophie Feldheim, their maid Karoline Kalk, committed suicide in Amsterdam on the 15th of May,1940.

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…