Helga Deen
Helga Deen (born April 6, 1925 in Stettin ; died July 16, 1943 in the Sobibor extermination camp ) was a German Jew who was murdered by the National Socialists at the age of 18 . Her notes came out as a book.
Life
As an 18-year-old schoolgirl, she was taken to the Herzogenbusch concentration camp near Vught on June 1, 1943 , where she secretly recorded her thoughts, impressions and experiences in the camp for about a month. She described feelings of powerlessness, despair, but also longing for her childhood sweetheart Kees. She directed her notes to Kees as "sweetheart" and wrote on exercise book pages. The last entry is dated 1 July 1943. On July 2, 1943, Deen first to the Westerbork transit camp and finally to Sobibor deported where they along with their parents Willy Deen and Käthe Deen-Wolff and her brother Klaus Gottfried Albert Deen at 16 July was murdered in the extermination camp.
Her "diary" was smuggled out of the camp by some friends and later given to Kees. He kept it hidden all his life.
estate
After the death of the Dutch artist Kees van den Berg , his son Conrad discovered an old brown women's handbag with letters, postcards and a gray-green exercise book with the inscription "Chemie H. Deen" in his father's studio. The inconspicuous notebook contains the diary of his great childhood sweetheart - Helga Deen.
Your in October 2004 at the Regional Archives Tilburg presented to the public records (21 pages), addressed to her lover, about life in the Dutch camp Vught were repeated with the diary of Anne Frank compared. Under the title “If my will dies, I will die too. Diary and Letters ” a book about Helga Deen was published by Rowohlt Verlag .
plant
- If my will dies, I die too. 2007.
literature
- Andreas Pflock : On forgotten tracks. A guide to memorials in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Published by the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb), Bonn 2006.
Web links
- Literature by and about Helga Deen in the catalog of the German National Library
- Information from the regional archive, mostly Dutch. with pictures
- References to German press releases
- Comprehensive German-language information about KL Herzogenbusch / Camp Vught
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Deen, Helga |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German Jew, Holocaust victim |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 6, 1925 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Szczecin |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 16, 1943 |
| Place of death | Sobibor extermination camp |