A Silent Reminder

Each night, I have a ritual of taking the trash to the community trash bin (more on that in a later post), I have walked down the sidewalk almost each day since we have lived here, and I never saw this...

I actually probably would never have even have known it was there until we had our neighbor over for dinner a few weeks ago.  He is Dutch and explained to us what this small silent marker meant.

 Right here, a few houses down from the one we are living in, a woman by the name of Lea Rosenbaum was deported in 1943 during World War II.  The marker is placed right outside the front door of her home...

Ms. Rosenbaum was born in 1873 and deported in 1943 and murdered on March 20, 1943.

Ms.Rosenbaun was deported to Westerbork Dentention Camp. You can read more about it here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerbork_transit_camp. Westerbork is the same detention camp Anne Frank was sent to during World War II.  It is such a silent reminder, I may have missed it.  Our neighbor told us that there are many markers outside of doors all through Groningen where people were taken from their homes and deported during the war, and many were never seen again.  For myself, as an American, it is something I cannot fathom.  As a human being, I cannot comprehend it. I remember visiting the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam in 2009.  You can click here to see my post about it.  I remember not being able even start to understand how human beings could do such vicious things to other human beings...

It has been more than 70 years, and the wounds may not be as visible, but the scars from this war are still there if you look very closely...