Letter from Maastricht, to J.Vedder

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Accession Number: NEKHC:2014.7.5

Object: Letter

Physical Description: Typewritten ink on thin paper, fragile, some ink handwriting. Complete.

Information: This letter is one of six documents donated together. The letter was written to Jopie Vedder by a relative of her partner. He is in recovery and is seeking contact, after having survived the Holocaust.

Further Information

This letter was sent to Jopie Vedder, and is one of six documents donated together. The letter is dated 1 June 1945, and was written by I. Parijs, who was a relation of Jopie’s partner. The letter was sent from a Jesuit Monastery in Maastricht. The letter is a follow up letter to one sent previously in which the author was letting Jopie know he was still alive. The author states that to describe the hardship he suffered during the Holocaust would have been too much for him at that time. He states he has ‘endured hell’, and is now back on Dutch ground although health was preventing his return to Amsterdam. The author was suffering from ill health as a result of his experiences and his left arm had been injured. However the letter states he is improving each day, having previously spent three weeks in an American run hospital in Dachau. He had been transferred by plane from Dachau to The Netherlands and arrived at the monastery the Sunday prior to writing this letter. The food and can care at the monastery are good. The author does not yet know the fate of his wife and children, and he is struggling to comprehend the loss of his family. The last time he had seen them was at their arrival in Poland, and the author has lost hope of seeing his family again. The author received a reply from Jopie, and wrote again to her in a letter which is also housed in our museum (2014.7.4). Jopie's partner did not survive the Holocaust, the circumstances of his death are unknown.  

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