Porcelain tableware set of Hester Raizmann-Rood. Collection

Hester Raizmann was born on 14 June 1893 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, as the daughter of Mozes Raizmann and Gina Lorchiski. In 1913 she married Hijman Rood, born on 15 March 1895 in Amsterdam. On their wedding day Hester Raizmann received a porcelain tableware set as a gift. The family would cherish the tableware and use it on special occasions. Hijman became a diamond dealer while Hester took care of their family. Together they would have four children: Duifje (born on 5 December 1914), Fedora alias Feetje (born on 9 July 1917), Agnes (born on 25 September 1920) and Mozes (born on 5 April 1923). Sadly, Duifje Rood passed away when she was only eighteen months old. In 1939 middle daughter Fedora married Jonas Wegloop after which she inherited her mother Hester’s porcelain tableware. On 10 May 1940, Nazi-Germany invaded the Netherlands. By February 1941 Hester, her husband Hijman and their two youngest children Agnes and Mozes were living at Weesperzijde 36 in Amsterdam, while daughter Fedora and her husband Jonas Wegloop lived nearby at Weesperzijde 120. On 18 April 1942 Fedora gave birth to a daughter named Diane Wegloop, who was placed in hiding soon after. As the Nazis were trying to profit from the diamond industry as much as possible they issued passes to Dutch-Jewish diamond dealers and to skilled diamond workers which exempted them and their families temporarily from deportation. Hijman and his wife presumably received such a pass and were thus initially protected against arrest. In the course of 1943 this protection was gradually lifted. Hester and Hijman were registered at the Dutch internment camp Westerbork on 29 September 1943. On 19 May 1944 they were deported to Bergen-Belsen where the Nazis concentrated a group of Dutch-Jewish diamond workers in order for them to perform skilled labour for the German war industry. Hijman was part of this group. In Bergen-Belsen Hester last saw her daughter Fedora Rood. Fedora and her husband Jonas Wegloop had been arrested in February 1943 after which they had been sent to Westerbork via camp Vught. Both had been deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on 23 March 1944 from where Fedora was sent to Bergen-Belsen where she perished. Hester’s other two children – Agnes and Mozes – were also murdered during the Holocaust. Youngest daughter Agnes had been in hiding at Okegomstraat 33 in Amsterdam, but was arrested on 14 August 1943, after which she was deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz-Birkenau where she was murdered. Only son Mozes was also deported and was killed in the course of 1944. When supplies didn’t come through the Dutch diamond workers at Bergen-Belsen, including Hijman Rood, were separated from their women and children. On 4 December 1944, Hijman and the other men were sent to Sachsenhausen. Hijman Rood perished at the Oranienburg concentration camp on 3 February 1945. The women, including Hester, were sent to Helmstedt-Beendorf, a subcamp of Neuengamme, on 5 December 1944. There they had to perform forced labour in the local salt mines. Hester survived and was repatriated to Amsterdam in Summer 1945 where she was reunited with her son-in-law Jonas Wegloop (Fedora’s husband) who survived Auschwitz, Monowitz, Libau, Buchenwald, Ohrdruf and Bergen-Belsen, and with her granddaughter Diane Wegloop who had survived in hiding in Amsterdam. Hester, together with Jonas and Diane, relocated from Amsterdam to Antwerp, Belgium, in 1948 to find work in the diamond industry. In Antwerp, Hester discovered her old porcelain tableware set in the window of an antique shop. She then bought the pieces back one by one and handed them down to her granddaughter Diane Wegloop (married Gutwein) who left the tableware to her own daughter Tania Gutwein-Stanger. The tableware was never used again, but was cherished as a memory to their lost loved ones. Hester Raizmann-Rood passed away in 1979, her son-in-law Jonas Wegloop in 1977.

This porcelain tableware set was given to Hester Raizmann and Hijman Rood as a wedding gift when they married in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 1913. Over time, it was passed on to their daughter Fedora Rood (married Wegloop). After Fedora's arrest, the tableware was seized by the Nazis. Hester survived deportation and, in 1948, moved from Amsterdam to Antwerp, Belgium, where she discovered her own china in the window of an antique shop. She then worked to buy back the porcelain piece by piece. The tableware was never used again and was inherited by Hester's surviving granddaughter Diane Wegloop (married Gutwein) and then by Hester's great-granddaughter Tania Gutwein-Stanger. On 28 September 2023, Tania donated the tableware set to Kazerne Dossin.

Tania Gutwein-Stanger, great-granddaughter of Hester Raizmann-Rood