The Germans invaded the Netherlands
When the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940 Rosie’s brother is serving as a soldier guarding the State Printer’s in The Hague. The Germans had not reached The Hague at that point. A Dutch compatriot fires at him from a window. The bullet barely misses him, tearing his glasses from his face. He is only able to escape to safety after nightfall.
Betrayal from (ex-)husband Leo and lover Kees
Rosie (ex-)husband Leo reports her to the Kultuurkamer. Rosie is forced to close her thriving dance school.
Leo and his brother Marinus betray Rosie to the commissioner of police and the mayor. Rosie is arrested and handed over to the SS who lock her up for six weeks.
- Read betrayal letter October 11th 1941
- Read betrayal letter February 28th 1942
- Read message ‘Kultuurkamer’ March 13th 1942
- Read letter to the police March 21th 1942
When Rosie is summoned to make her way ‘voluntarily’ to Westerbork she changes her identity and moves into rooms with Mr and Mrs Coljee in Naarden. Mrs Coljee is German and her husband is an NSB member. Rosie is betrayed by her Dutch lover Kees. She is arrested by a Dutch policeman at gunpoint, interrogated by Dutch SS, locked in a police cell, and transported to Camp Westerbork.
Germans do not feature in any of these events. Rosie’s (ex-)husband Leo, his brother Marinus, her lover Kees, the policeman, inspector Verstappen, his boss van Keulen, the commissioner, the mayor, the civil servants at the Kultuurkamer, the people who stripped her house, cheated her out of her money, the railway staff, the prison guards… all of them were Dutch.
Westerbork and Camp Vught
In Westerbork and later in Camp Vught to which she is transferred, many of the guards and other assistants ware likewise Dutch. The senior SD chief in Westerbork, Jorg Mulner (fictional name) who organised the deportations ( Rosie made up the lists) was a Dutchman.
In Camp Vught, Dutch Aufseherinnen treat the Dutch prisoners badly. They include Katja Schol and Jenny van Rijnsbergen.
German Magda Coljee and her NSB husband Henk help Rosie by sending her weekly food parcels and Mrs Coljee even visits her in Camp Westerbork. A number of her students at the dance school also visit her in Westerbork via a special arrangement organised by Rosie herself.
Rosie’s mother writes to Rosie from Westerbork and her father to Coljee to tell they will be leaving that day to the dreadful East. A couple of days later they are murdered in Sobibor. Rosie leaves Vught for Auschwitz.
Rosie hears nothing and sees nothing of her native Netherlands or the Dutch Red Cross. The Netherlands is conspicuous by its absence when other relief organisations are active in Germany towards the end of the war, including the Swedish, Belgian and French Red Cross. She is forced to pretend to be Danish in order to be helped. Thanks to food parcels from the Swedish Red Cross she manages to survive.
