Portrait of co-plaintiffs
Because not a day goes by, without a thought of the shoah
Most of the co-plaintiffs will set off for Munich to represent their parents killed at Sobibor. Yet, some of them have not only lost both parents, but siblings in Sobibor as well. There is one person whose young wife was murdered in the extermination camp. There are indeed complainants who did not only lose their relatives but survived one or more such camps themselves.
Rob Cohen (aged 83) was 19 years old by the end of the war and he spent more than two years in concentration and extermination camps, one of which Auschwitz-Birkenau. “I have seen the Nazi merciless murder machine at work. It defies all human imagination and anyone having joined these massacres deserves a fitting and just punishment.� If a German court were to pronounce such a verdict, it would, in his opinion, merit Germany a place among western democracies. “That so many have gotten off scot-free is still eating my heart.�
Vera de Jong-Simons (aged 69) feels obliged towards “her murdered parents and relatives to now still see one of the perpetrators brought to justice.� It is important for her that as many co-plaintiffs as possible are on the spot to create the broadest global publicity. Against the background of this trial her personal concern is “that I have had to miss my parents all my life, with all its consequences; the realisation and awareness of the inhumane manner with which my parents, my grandmother and my aunt have been killed.�
Rudie Cortissos (aged 70) takes her complainant place to court to get just a bit of restitution and to show the world that surviving dependants’ thoughts still go back and are to this day in a daily struggle with the past. “Yes, to confront the issue at hand, but I doubt we can keep our eyes dry. Even big blokes are known to occasionally cry.�
On Dec 21/22 not present un Munich
Maurits Koopman (aged 85) is going to represent his parents who were murdered in Sobibor. “After having saved a Hitlerjugend boy’s life in the Netherlands, I reported at the local Zentralstelle and asked them how a Jewish family’s life measures up to a German boy’s. That’s how I saved my parents’ lives a couple of times (they were rounded up 12 times from home), but eventually they were deported to the Dutch transit camp Vught, with the whole family. April 1943 was the final chapter. I survived Auschwitz and some more camps by sheer luck, not on my own accord or by my own merits. I am a co-plaintiff to make a stand for my parents because it’s the last thing I can do for them. They do not even have proper graves that I could have tended to.�
He himself will not be present at the trial, as he cannot cope, neither physically nor mentally. He does find it important though: “After two dreadful wars with Germany in the leading role, it has now turned into a democratic state and I would want to stand there in a fair trial.
On Dec 21/22 not present un Munich
Louis van Velzen (aged 74) whose parents, grandfather, grandmother and aunt were killed at Sobibor: “I can still see my father, standing there on the morning he went to the Dutch camp at Westerbork, his lunchbox in his hand, asking me at the foot of my bed: ‘Will you please take good care of your mother and brother?’ I did promise him as a seven-year-old boy but I have not been able to live up to that promise. So I shall be a co-plaintiff and I will join and be present at the Munich trial.
I have never hesitated going and I want to be strong. Tears will come, though.� Louis himself survived thanks to ten foster families and hideout addresses in the south-eastern Dutch regions of Twente and Brabant. He is fairly light-hearted about Catholic life back there: “When coming to an Amsterdam family after the war, that was indeed my worst address.�The tone is positive, never spiteful or vindictive: to make the world know, to have law and justice prevail, that is the only thing I can now do for my dear beloved parents.
Mrs Pim Combrink-van Huizen (aged 79) identifies grief, desolation, helplessness, frustration “last but not least clarity about the Sobibor extermination camp, and that for all times, as her overriding motives.
On Dec 21/22 not present un Munich
Jules Schelvis (aged 88) lost his young wife and all his in-laws through Sobibor. He himself was deported to Sobibor with his in-laws but escaped its massacre. As one of the very few deported he was not sent to the gas chambers but got deployed in the Dorohucza peat digging labour camp. He survived seven concentration and extermination camps and later wrote ‘Binnen de Poorten’. (Inside the Fence, ed.) At the revision trial against the Sobibor executioner Karl Frenzel he had the co-plaintiff’s part. At that point he started to gather Sobibor documents, resulting in the classic document ‘Vernietigingskamp Sobibor’ (Extermination Camp Sobibor, ed.), which the Amsterdam University granted him an honorary doctorate for in 2008.
At war’s end Rob Fransman (aged 69) was not even five years old. He lost his both parents, uncles, aunts and cousins at Sobibor: “The war had a clear impact on my life. That trickles down to my children’s lives and perhaps even affects my grandchildren’s. I cannot begin to measure that. Let us just say I have a bone to pick.�
Jan Goedel (aged 71) expresses the hope this trial can contribute to coming to terms with the loss of both his parents, grandparents and in total more than 30 relatives killed. He wishes to represent his parents. “This is the only way I can stand up for them.�
For most co-plaintiffs the bringing to court of war criminals plays a big part, even though it is more than 65 years after the fact.
Paul Hellmann (aged 74): “I knew my father for merely seven years, have missed him for the rest of my life – more so as the years went by. I now have the chance to represent him at the very place where judgment will be pronounced on the unimaginable wrongdoings of the past.� Like other people Hellmann emphasises the significance of Sobibor getting better known, particularly in the light of recent holocaust denials.
Mary Richheimer-Leijden van Amstel (aged 70) feels indebted to her parents murdered in Sobibor to make a stand as a complainant. That way she can be instrumental in revealing the Sobibor horrors. She herself will go to the Munich trial to bear witness to Demjanjuk being sentenced.
On Dec 21/22 not present un Munich
Rob Wurms’s (aged 66) two sisters got murdered in Sobibor at ages 13 and 15. He decided to become a co-plaintiff as that is “by now the only thing I can do for them.�
He strongly believes this trial contributes to the awareness that random and large-scale homicide must never ever re-occur and that those responsible shall always be accountable. Lastly I feel an obligation to participate in an attempt to at last make an effort in furthering the cause of law and justice, after the disappointment I felt about the post-war course of justice and the authorities’ indifference.
Lotty Huffener-Veffer (aged 88) is a complainant “because they killed my parents and sister.� She loses sleep over people disbelieving the shoah took place. If Demjanjuk would state in court what happened at Sobibor it would steal the thunder from holocaust denialists. As a complainant she has an attorney represent her: “I shall not go to the trial because I do not once again want to return to Germany.�
On Dec 21/22 not present un Munich
In an eastern-Amsterdam raid David van Huiden (aged 78) managed to escape. He took his leave from his parents and sister, disposed of his Star of David and walked his dog, a German shepherd. His parents who got killed in Sobibor 12 days after the raid, had arranged for him to find a safehouse with non-Jewish friends. He stayed at several hideouts hoping, until liberation day, to get reunited with his parents and sister.
As a co-plaintiff he wants the great injustice done to his family to be revealed and to contribute for Sobibor not to be forgotten.
On Dec 21/22 not present un Munich
“The shoah determined my entire life� says Ellen van der Spiegel Cohen (aged 76). As a one-year-old baby she was allegedly abandoned in 1943 by the student resistance movement at a childless couple’s door, who gave her a Christian upbringing. After the war confusion and sorrow set in when she discovers her true identity. Two sisters of her mother’s, the only two relatives to survive the shoah, were not legally (judicially) allowed to take her up into their families. She remains at her foster parents and lives on with her silenced secret of her double identity. The judge has ruled for her to “partially� be raised a Jew. On Saturday she goes to Jewish lessons in the sjoel (synagogue) and the following days to Sunday School. She tells how important it is for her to place a stone for her murdered parents near a freshly planted tree at the Lane of Remembrance (Gedenklaan, ed.). On the stone is a poem by her hand:
So much grief
like a stone
in our heart,So much love
like a tree
into the clouds.
Leon Veyra (aged 67) was a one-year-old baby too when his father was killed in Sobibor. “After long deliberations and despite the emotions and anger evoked by this trial, I decided to be a co-plaintiff, also on account of the shadows of 74 relatives killed, now co-spectators looking over my shoulder. I was once forced by others to go into hiding. If I would now not become a co-plaintiff it would have felt for me like voluntarily going into hiding. Veyra is set to go to Munich too, to see if he recognises any humanity in Demjanjuk. He hopes it will give him some peace of mind that Demjanjuk, even at this late stage, will be called to account.
Rudi Westerveld (aged 67) speaks of a “terrible personal family disaster.� His parents, his grandfather and grand-grandfather, his grand-grandmother and three aunts “and many more relatives� were murdered at Sobibor when he was a six-month-old baby. He wants to attend the Munich trial; “It appears the very least I can do is to again expose this crime.
“I still live, as I speak, with the grief inflicted by murderous hands and this has a permanent effect on the way I live,� says 86-year-old Philip Jacobs. He is representing his murdered parents at the trial, both killed at Sobibor. In a short sentence he adds: “My beloved Ruth Eva Asch was killed at Sobibor as well, on the 23rd of July 1943.� He considers the trial the last chance to publicly commemorate them and indict the killers.
At the moment that Max Degen’s parents were forced to go to the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork in March 1943, an uncle and his non-Jewish German wife had already taken the six-month-old Max into their care. By the time that baby Max is betrayed and discovered at his foster parents, his parents and his three-year-old brother have already been killed in the Sobibor gas chamber. Max is removed to the Jewish day-care centre opposite the building of the Hollandsche Schouwburg (Dutch theatre ed.) from where Amsterdam Jews get deported to the camps. Members of the Resistance movement succeed in smuggling Max out of the day-care centre and he, in hiding, survives the occupation and the deportations. His father, mother and brother, after arrival in Sobibor, were immediately gassed there.
“My whole life is dominated by the killing of my family and this is the last thing I can do in their name.� That is why he will go to the Munich trial as a co-plaintiff. �And also to support each other (the other complainants) and to come face to face with Demjanjuk.
Marcus de Groot (aged 70) whose parents were killed in Sobibor when he was three years old, actually summarises for all complainants what aspects of his life are important for the court case: “Because not a day goes by without a thought of the shoah.�
Click here for portraits of the Nebenkläger from the USA
© Stichting Sobibor, Amsterdam November 2009; Photo’s: Carlo Huffener; Text: Jeannette Klusman
press@stichtingsobibor.nl