Still from the short film ‘Diorama’, the first episode of the Sally & Nelly Story, a short film series — coming soon.
Citation info : Episode • Renée Cassin & Michel van der Burg • Miracles•Media • @1MEMO 20250426 • TakeNode 037e52b1-7569-4aba-b86a-a2581f900c81
Special, limited, Transport XX commemoration this year in Boortmeerbeek, Belgium on 21th April 2025.
“Zog nit keyn mol” – Never Say … the Yiddish Partisan Song written in 1943 by Hirsh Glick.
Watch also the entire Boormeerbeek Crescendo choir singing “Zog nit keyn mol” here
https://youtu.be/FmXmhzzuUc4
Photo, video, thanks to Michel Baert and Nick Doms, Municipal council Boortmeerbeek.
Citation info : Transport XX Boortmeerbeek 2025 • Miracles•Media | 20250423
Today 80 years ago , April 19, 1945 – the Buchenwald band ‘Rhythmus’ – with Jiří Žák & Robert Clary – gave a jazz concert in the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald for their comrades and US soldiers that liberated the camp .
We , today, present the extended version of our Robert Clary documentary, now featuring also Robert Clary’s desire that Jiří Žák be nominated as a Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem…
Full details posted at Settela•Com , here :
Robert Clary Story • Documentary (Extended Version) | 20250419 | Miracles•Media | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313 | URL https://settela.com/2025/04/19/robert-clary-story-documentary-extended-version-20250419/
Short impression (some clips) of my visit on Friday evening, April 11, 2025, to the Atelier Marcel Hastir in Brussels, at the start and closing of ‘Auschwitz, our story’— documentary and lecture by Herman Teerhöfer, with the participation of Natalia and Julia Kotarba of the Karski Quartet.
Herman Teerhöfer of the Smolinski Foundation interviewed 91 Auschwitz survivors over the past fourteen years. Through his documentary Auschwitz, Our Story, he explains how they managed to survive Auschwitz spiritually, oscillating between hope and fear.
Atelier Marcel Hastir • Auschwitz, ons verhaal : documentaire en lezing (Auschwitz, notre histoire: documentaire et conférence (en anglais ) par Herman Teerhöfer , avec la participation de Natalia et Iulia Kotarba du Quatuor Karski (violon et violoncelle) • URL https://ateliermarcelhastir.eu/agenda/2025-04-11-auschwitz-ons-verhaal-smolinskifoundation/
Trailer (dutch) film Auschwitz. Ons verhaal. URL https://smolinski.nl/wp/blog/2021/10/22/trailer-van-de-film-auschwitz-dit-is-ons-verhaal/
Smolinski Foundation • URL https://smolinski.nl/
Karski Quartet • https://karskiquartet.com
Citation info : Auschwitz Survivors In Brussels • Michel van der Burg • Miracles•Media • @1MEMO 20250418 • TakeNode 9eeb9646-f769-41d6-9b97-ccf27bf5c7a5
Stumbling stone placed Friday , April 11, 2025. Stolperstein street art monument by Gunter Demnig. Rue Marie-Therese 13 , Brussels, Belgium .
Background:
Story of Righteous Nelly • Quintart aka Quintard • URL https://settela.com/2023/05/26/story-of-righteous-nelly-quintart-aka-quintard/
Notes
Reportage following next week
Citation info : Sally • 20250411 | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313
Utrecht family identification , almost complete…
Almost certainly, three Jewish people have been recognized in the unique Westerbork film from 1944 (1). This time it concerns the 9-year-old boy Israël Wijnschenk, his father Max Wijnschenk, and his grandmother Betje Kokernoot-van Furth, who all lived in Utrecht (Holland).
Last week, the Dutch public broadcaster NOS (2) reported the news from the Utrecht (Dutch) news site Nieuws030 (3) that it is very likely that three people were recognized again in this film made by the Jewish prisoner and filmmaker Rudolf Breslauer showing the deportation of Jews, Roma and Sinti by train in Camp Westerbork on May 19, 1944.
Image researcher Koen Hulsbos — who previously identified an Amsterdam couple in this deportation train (4) — thought he recognized the young Israël Wijnschenk, a pupil at the time of the Joodse (Jewish) School Utrecht, and presented this to Victor Frederik, researcher of the Joodse School (5,6). The boy, the man, and the woman seem to belong together, and were recognized from family photos, also by family members.
It is certain that Max and his wife Chel (not in the images) returned to Utrecht after the war, their children Israël and his sister Kitty were murdered. Grandma Betje was also gassed in Auschwitz.
A portrait of Israël Wijnschenk is shown at the site of Joods Monument (7).
According to the transport list, there were two other children in that wagon, Joseph Beugeltas (11 years old) and Manfred Studzinsky (7 years old). Joseph Beugeltas appeared to have blond hair, and could not have been it (6). To be completely sure, the researchers are still looking for a photo of Manfred Studzinsky, for comparison…
1) Deportation Westerbork Film • Edition 2021 | 20210719 | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313 | Footage filmed by Rudolf Breslauer in 1944, courtesy of NIOD | Sound and Vision . URL https://settela.com/2021/07/19/deportation-westerbork-film-20210719/
2) Utrechters ‘vrijwel zeker’ herkend op Westerborkfilm uit 1944. NOS Nieuws Feb 22, 2025. URL https://nos.nl/l/2556858
3) Nieuwe herkenningen in Westerborkfilm ‘bijna zeker’. Jim Terlingen | Nieuws030 . URL https://www.nieuws030.nl/hist030rie/drie-nieuwe-herkenningen-in-westerborkfilm-zo-goed-als-zeker/
4) Amsterdam couple found in Westerbork film • 20241223 | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313 | URL https://settela.com/2024/12/23
5) Joodse school Utrecht. Website. URL https://joodseschoolutrecht.nl
6) Israël op Westerborkfilm? Victor Frederik- Web site Joodse school Utrecht. (Accessed 20250224). URL https://joodseschoolutrecht.nl/nl/Verhalen-over-leerlingen/Kitty-en-Israel-Wijnschenk/Israel-op-Westerborkfilm/
7) Portrait of Israël Wijnschenk. Site Joods Monument. URL https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/122045/israël-wijnschenk
Citation info : Discoveries Deportation Westerbork Film • 20250224 | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313 | URL https://settela.com/2025/02/24/
by Michel van der Burg • Miracles•Media
Ward Adriaens (Mechelen, Belgium) passed away suddenly on the evening of November 15th, 2024. A wonderful man, a freethinker, author, with a passion for living history, especially the resistance, partisans, in World War II, and the founding director in 1995 of the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance (JMDR) that opened its doors in 1996. In 2012 the JMDR became the Kazerne Dossin museum, with Ward Adriaens as honorary curator. In 2005 Ward Adriaens launched the Give Them a Face archival project. The portraits of all Jewish, Roma and Sinti deportees which passed through the SS-Sammellager Mecheln (Dossin barracks, transit camp, Mechelen) in 1942-1944, were scanned to create the “Give Them a Face” portrait collection. All around 20,000 photos in the Give Them a Face portrait collection are now part of the commemoration wall – a permanent exhibition – at the Kazerne Dossin museum.
In 2009 , I first encountered the Transport XX installation in Brussels, and met Ward Adriaens’ team of the Give Them a Face project in the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance in Mechelen, Belgium (1,2).
Next , Ward Adriaens participated in our 2012 documentary Transport XX to Auschwitz (3).
Recently, May 2024, Ward Adriaens’ opening speech at the TRANSPORT XX installation in Mechelen in 2007, was posted in the ‘Miracles’ project at Miracles•Media (4).
“…Let us clearly understand that this is the fundamental basis of racism: persecuted because we have a mother. We all have parents and many amongst us have children. In order to protect them it is essential that we do not give an inch to racism. Everyone of us will come under threat should the policy makers be influenced by racism…”
We lost Ward Adriaens… way too soon…
Michel van der Burg • Miracles•Media
1. Encounter • Miracles Docs #1 • Miracles•Media • 20240419 • URL https://miracles.media/2024/04/19/20240419/
2. Faces • Miracles Photo Story #1 • Miracles•Media • 20240419 • URL https://miracles.media/2024/04/19/faces-miracles-photo-story-1-20240419/
3. Ward Adriaens’ interview by the dutch reporters Piet de Blaauw & Aart Zeeman (Dutch NCRV-Netwerk broadcast, 13 April 2005, NL1) from the documentary ‘Transport XX to Auschwitz’ – a film by Karen Lynne & Richard Bloom and Michel van der Burg • In : Documentary film “Transport XX to Auschwitz” • Miracles•Media • 20130419 • URL (retrieved 20241119) https://michelvanderburg.com/2013/04/19/transport-xx-to-auschwitz/
4. Speech by Ward Adriaens, Curator of The JMDR, Friday 20th April 2007. In : TRANSPORT XX installation Mechelen • Miracles•Media • 20240518 • URL https://miracles.media/2024/05/18/transport-xx-installation-mechelen-20240518/
Citation info : In Memoriam Ward Adriaens • Miracles•Media • 20241119 • URL https://michelvanderburg.com/2024/11/19/in-memoriam-ward-adriaens-20241119/
