Project 'Long shadow of Sobibor' Interview 08 Rob Wurms Project 'Late gevolgen van Sobibor'

Rob Wurms was only a two-moths old baby at the time he went into hiding. With his parents he lived in Swammerdamstraat in Amsterdam. Both his parents had children from earlier marriages. Two of his half-sisters were killed in Sobibor together with their mother. Rob's parents perished in Auschwitz. A half-brother and many other relatives were also killed by the Nazis, in Auschwitz, Sobibor, and elsewhere. Three of Rob's elder (half-)brothers survived the war in hiding. Rob knew about his family and relatives only from hearsay. His hiding parents later became his foster parents, whom he considered to be his natural parents: he just didn't know anything else. They were very active members of the reformed community. His foster mother died already in 1949, his foster father remarried in 1951. His new foster mother told him he was a foster child, and Jewish. His natural brothers grew up elsewhere, Rob got to know them little by little. When he was fifteen his foster father died, a good man who did a lot for others and whom Rob was fond of. The discrepancies between reformed life at home and the Jewish life of his other relatives provoked inner conflicts in him. Embarrasment and grief has played a major role in his life. He and his wife brought up their three children in the Jewish tradition. Rob has lived a fully liberal, Jewish life.