Letter from Westerbork, to J.Vedder

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Accession Number: NEKHC:2014.7.3

Object: Letter

Physical Description: Lined paper, some discolouration. Ink stamp and postage stamp. Black ink handwriting. Fragile. 

Information: This letter is one of six documents donated together. The letter was written by a Jewish man held in Westerbork Transit Camp, to his non-Jewish partner in Amsterdam.

Further Information

This letter is addressed to Jopie Vedder, at an Amsterdam address. The letter is one of six documents donated together. The letter was written from Westerbork Transit Camp to Jopie Veder by her partner, M.Parijs-van Beezem, a Jewish man from Amsterdam. The pair had been living together in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands. Jopie was not Jewish, however her partner was arrested by the Nazi regime and held in Westerbork. The letter thanks Jopie for a package of useful items, and asks how she is doing. The letter asks Jopie whether she ‘had an answer’, although the question is known only to the writer and reader. He writes that he is well, apart from a sudden panic attack, he is continuing to work and care for the children who were also held in Westerbork. The letter states that people held in the camp are extremely grateful for things sent to them and asks that Jopie pass on their gratitude. Her partner is curious as to how Jopie is managing to cope and provide food, and passes on the best wishes of the children he is caring for. The letter ends ‘hugs and kisses from us all. Your darling’. The circumstances of his death are not known, however Jopie’s partner did not survive the Holocaust. The donor’s mother had been friends with Jopie since becoming a lodger in her boarding house at the end of the Second World War. The pair remained good friends and Jopie travelled with the family to Zambia for a time, before returning to Holland. Jopie was around twenty years older than the donor’s mother, she never married or took another partner.  

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