Isaac Maarsen

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Isaac Maarsen (1925)
Ha'amoed - De Vuurzuil , bi-weekly newspaper for the Jewish population in The Hague, Leiden, Delft and Alphen, of which Maarsen was editor-in-chief. Front cover of the (last) issue of May 10, 1940, the day on which German paratroopers landed in The Hague.

Isaac (Izak) Maarsen (born February 27, 1892 in Amsterdam ; died July 23, 1943 in the Sobibor extermination camp ) was a Dutch rabbi . From 1925 until his death in 1943 he was Chief Rabbi of The Hague .

biography

family

Isaac Maarsen was a son of Rabbi Wolf Isaac Maarsen. On June 15, 1921, he married Jeanette Boekdrukker (1895–1943) in Amsterdam. The couple had three daughters: Rosina (1923–1943), Henriette (1925–1943) and Suzanna (1928–1943). The entire family was murdered in the Holocaust , Rosina in Auschwitz , her parents and sisters in the Sobibor extermination camp.

Rabbis and scientists

Maarsen graduated from the University of Amsterdam in Classical Literature and at the same time from the Nederlands Israëlietisch Seminarium in Amsterdam. At the age of 22 he received the title Moré . In 1910 he was appointed rabbi in Amsterdam and in 1925 appointed chief rabbi of The Hague, where the second largest Jewish community in the Netherlands was based. Maarsen was a staunch opponent of "mixed marriages" between Christians and Jews and of reform currents in Judaism.

Isaac Maarsen published extensively and maintained lively contacts with colleagues at home and abroad with whom he corresponded in Hebrew . He translated the treatise Avot as well as medieval and modern poetry from Hebrew into Dutch and did research on the history of the Dutch rabbinate . His reputation is based on his studies in rabbinical literature that have appeared in various Hebrew magazines.

In World War II

When the Second World War broke out in the Netherlands, concern for the Jews in The Hague came to the fore for Rabbi Isaac Maarsen. The German occupiers forced many Jewish people from The Hague to move to Amsterdam, from where they were deported to the Westerbork transit camp and other camps. The remaining family members needed support, but Rabbi Maarsen also tried to help the deported parishioners in Amsterdam.

After the German occupation forces decided on April 23, 1943, that Jews were no longer allowed to reside in The Hague, Isaac Maarsen gave a farewell speech on April 20, 1943 in the synagogue on Wagenstraat. The next day he was deported to Poland with his wife and daughters via the Herzogenbuch and Westerbork camps. They were murdered in Sobibór three months later.

Isaac Maarsen's Archives

The Maarsen archive is located in the Center for Research on Dutch Jewry in Jerusalem and in the city archive of The Hague. Part of the Maarsen archive was looted by the German occupiers in 1943. The documents were brought to the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin , and because of the bombing of the city, they were transferred to depots in Silesia and the Sudetenland . The archive materials from Maarsen ended up in Silesia in Castle Wölfelsdorf (where, for example, Heinrich Himmler's secret documents were also housed). From there they were brought to Moscow by the Soviet Army in 1945 . After decades of searching, the documents in Moscow - including the archive of Isaac Maarsen - were located and the archives of Jewish institutions in The Hague were released from Russia to the Netherlands in 2003. Queen Beatrix had personally campaigned for President Putin on a state visit to Russia . Since then they have been in the City Archives of The Hague.

Honors

The former Bezemplein in The Hague was renamed Rabbijn Maarsenplein in 2006 . In the square is the Joods Kindermonument (Jewish children's monument) with the names of 400 Jewish children from The Hague who were murdered in the Holocaust.

Publications (selection)

  • Het gemengde huwelijk: een persoonlijk getuigenis . JL Joachimsthal, Amsterdam 1927.
  • De joodsche reform movement . Menno Hertzberger, Amsterdam 1931.
  • Armoede . Menno Hertzberger, Amsterdam 1931.
  • Human en moraal: een Joodsche levensvisie . Thieme, Zutphen 1935.
  • De roep der hoogtijden . JL Joachimsthal, Amsterdam 1940.

Web links

Commons : Isaac Maarsen  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Family Maarsen. In: joodsmonument.nl. Retrieved September 25, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b Maarsen, Isaac. In: jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c d About Isaac Maarsen. Joods Monument, April 7, 2016, accessed November 9, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Corien Glaudemans: Terug uit Rusland. In: Joods Erfgoed The Hague. October 30, 2013, accessed July 24, 2020 (Dutch).
personal data
SURNAME Maarsen, Isaac
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maarsen, Izak (alternative name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch rabbi
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Amsterdam
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1943
Place of death Sobibor extermination camp