This is Mathilda ‘Tilly’ Nelly de Vries. Tilly lived on the Plantage Kerklaan in the Jewish neighbourhood of Amsterdam until she was arrested in March 1941 because she was a member of the Anti-Fascist Student Committee, a communist resistance group. After her arrest she stayed in the so called ‘Oranjehotel’, a prison in Scheveningen, The Hague. The nazis used this prison during the Second World War to detain people of the resistance, Jews and communists awaiting their interrogation and trial. 1,5 years later Tilly was murdered as Jewish woman in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
Tilly’s story is not unique. Of the approximately 140.000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands in 1940, more than 102.000 (75 percent) didn’t survive the horrors of the Holocaust. And the Second World War almost completely wiped out Jewish life in Amsterdam, that started in the 16th century. During 350 years Jews were a significant part of the population of Amsterdam and they left their tangible and cultural traces in the city.
I, Onno Warns, a Jewish ‘Amsterdammer’ myself, studied history in this city. During this tour of approximately 1,5 hours I will take you on a trip through history, which begins with the arrival of the first Spanish and Portuguese Jews in the neighbourhoods around the current Waterlooplein. We will walk from the stately synagogues at Mr. Visserplein, through Uilenburg and Rapenburg into the Plantage and the 20th century. Together we will look for testimonies of the vibrant Jewish life and stop at the memorials in remembrance of those who never came back.
Like Tilly, who was my great aunt.