Number 103: Today, a train trip from Amsterdam in Northern Holland to the seaside town of Bloemendaal takes just under 20 minutes. Even in June 1935 it would have been an easy day trip from their Amsterdam home for our Dutch family travelling there for a picnic.

I imagine that it was a wonderful day out. Beautiful views from the “Uitkyk” – the 43 metre high hilltop viewpoint where the photograph was taken.

The six people in the photograph from left to right are:  Oom Thijs (Matitia) a’ Cohen Treves z”l, brother of our late maternal grandfather Jaap (Jacob) z”l, his daughter Margreta z”l, mother Grietje z”l, father Moses z”l, younger daughter Pauline z”l and wife Rozet z”l.

Our Great Grandmother Grietje passed away on 17^th June 1943, the day before all the other people in the photograph were rounded up by the Nazis.  Moses died in Theresienstadt on 12^th July 1944. Thijs, Rozet, Margreta and Pauline, tragically, all perished in Auschwitz.

Thijs had spent huge amounts of time working on his family tree and story. The Amsterdam Archives and cemetery Beth Haim of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel were rich sources of information. All of his sacred work was lost.

The family in South Africa knew that terrible things were happening in Europe. Little did they know until sometime later the scale of how dreadful it was, who of their many family members they had lost in the Holocaust and who the few were that had survived.  

Little also could Oom Thijs, his wife, parents and daughters have foreseen in June 1935, while enjoying a day out with the family at the “Uitkyk” in Bloemendaal, how numbered their days were.