And no more sorrow

Pelzman (née Kiek) relates the experiences of her mother, Sonja, during the Holocaust, based on taped interviews. Sonja was born in 1922 in Hertogenbosch to an affluent Jewish family, the Cohens; during the war she lived in Amsterdam. Describes the German occupation of the Netherlands and first Nazi anti-Jewish measures. In October 1942, at the peak of the Nazi deportations of Jews, Sonja married Herman Rosenstein, a Jewish refugee from Germany. In May 1943 Herman was arrested and sent to Westerbork; a month later Sonja was also arrested. In February 1944 Sonja and Herman were deported to Theresienstadt, and from there to Auschwitz in August 1944. In November Sonja was transferred to Birnbäumel (then in Germany, now Gruszeczka, Poland), a satellite camp of Gross-Rosen. In January 1945 she evaded a death march and was liberated by the Soviets some days later. Her parents and sister, and her husband Herman, perished. After the war she married Maurits Kiek.