I was thirteen when the Germans invaded Holland in 1940 and initiated the persecution and deportation of Dutch Jews. I was forced to attend a school for Jewish children. One of my classmates was Anne Frank. In 1943 my father was imprisoned by the Nazis for having assisted Allied pilots who parachuted out of burning planes. He, my mother, my grandmother, my brother and I ware sent to Westbrook, the last concentration camp in Holland form which Jews were deported to various concentration camps. I spent over a year in Terezin in an increasingly desperate situation. When a rumor circulated that the Germans were looking for volunteers to be sent to Switzerland in an exchange for German POWs, we volunteered against the advice of most of the other inmates, who saw it as another trick. After a three-day train ride in February 1945, we crossed the boarder into Switzerland. This turned out to be the only exchange of Jews for German POWs. I have done needlepoint for many years. It was not untill1984 that I started my first piece that had the Holocaust as the focus.
