Number 01: This is the only photograph I know of, of Michael and Margriet Olman ‘nee Nieweg.  We know very little about the lives they led. They both have an illustrious family lineage that we are able to trace through many Generations and Countries of origin.

Michael and Margriet are the parents of Sophia a’ Cohen Treves ‘nee Olman and the Great, Great Grandparents of, inter alia, Brandon, David & Lindsay Hearn; Mark & Tracy-Leigh Penwarden; Yair & Maya Schkolne; Mia & Timor Skolni.

Margriet was born on 6/11/1866 in Usquert, Grongingen, Netherlands. Her family lived at 8 Kromboomsloot Street. Michael was born on 29/05/1867 in Amsterdam, Residence 57 Raamgracht Street. He was a Diamond Worker. They married on 10/07/1891 in Hoorn, Netherlands.

They had five children born in Amsterdam: Cato (Born 20/05/1892); Herman (2/06/1893 married 11/03/1920 to Johanna “Aunty Jo” Polak, 1898); Henriette (“Jet” – the “J” pronounced “Y”,  29/11/1895, married Levi De Jong, then divorced); Sophia (7/01/1897 married Jacob a’ Cohen Treves on 7/09/1922) and Israel (“Ies”  31/10/1898 married Suze Berlijn 1902 – 1969).

Tragically both Michael and Margriet perished in Sobibor, the Nazi German Extermination Camp in Poland, on 5/03/1943. Both Jet (Auschwitz 30/09/1942) and Levi perished in the Holocaust. Cato was a single parent.  She (on 9/04/1943) and her married daughter Branco Jacobs, born 21/10/1918, both perished at Sobibor.

Ies and Suze were “ondergedoken”  (hidden) in Enthoven during the war and thus escaped the Camps. Once Nazi soldiers searched the house they were hiding in. Hearing the boots, the story goes that they started giggling from nerves  – but weren’t heard. Ies lived a full life to 103. His last residence was the “Beth Zikna”, Beekstraat 40, in Arnhem!

Herman and Jo and Jacob and Sophia were in South Africa at the time of the war. I don’t remember my late Grandmother Sophie ever speaking about her parents, nor ever a conversation about the family members lost in the Holocaust. The experience and memories must have been so hugely painful for her…