Reiss family papers
- Date
-
1940-1945
- Language
-
Dutch
- Extent
-
1 folder
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Vera Waisvisz-Reiss
The papers consist of letters, documents, postcards, and a newspaper clipping relating to the experiences of the Reiss family during the Holocaust in the Netherlands.
-
Record last modified: 2017-09-12 11:51:18
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn510937
Also in Vera Waisvisz-Reiss family collection
The collection consists of an apron, letters, documents, postcards, and a newspaper clipping relating to the experiences of Vera Reiss, a hidden child, and her family in the Netherlands during the Holocaust.
Date: 1940-1945
Orange and blue apron made for a hidden Dutch Jewish child
Object
Orange and blue trimmed apron made for Vera Reiss by her foster mother, Huberta Van Pelt, in Baarn, Netherlands, circa May 1945. Huberta made the apron on the Dutch national colors to celebrate their liberation that month. Vera was born in German occupied Amsterdam in March 1942. That summer, the Germans began mass deportations to camps in the east. In July, Vera’s father Salomon allowed himself to be arrested, to spare his wife Sophie and their infant daughter. Sophie and Vera went into hiding with Sophie’s cousin Cato and then were hidden separately. Vera, now 9 months old, was sent to live with the Van Pelts, who knew Vera’s paternal grandfather Abraham. Her mother assumed a false identity as a housekeeper. On May 5, 1945, the Netherlands was liberated. Vera was reunited with her mother. Vera’s father was killed in Auschwitz in February 1943. Most of Vera’s large extended family was murdered in the Holocaust.
