Stumbling Stone Professor Bronkhorstlaan 10

A HUMAN BEING IS FORGOTTEN ONLY WHEN HIS NAME IS FORGOTTEN'
(Talmud)

Here in Bilthoven one Stumbling Stone was laid on August 10, 2023 for:

JUDITH HENRIËTTE MENDES-DA COSTA, murdered on July 7, 1944 in Auschwitz.

This Stumbling Stone is here for a jewish war victim, deported and murdered in the Second World War.

Judith Mendes da Costa was a nun of the Dominican Order and lived in the convent that belonged to the Sanatorium Berg en Bosch. In 1942 Archbishop de Jong issued a pastoral letter in which he took a stand against the persecution of the Jews. As a reprisal, 200 Catholic Jews were arrested and taken to Camp Westerbork, including Judith Mendes da Costa.

Because she was of Jewish-Portuguese descent, she was one of the few to be released and she returned to the convent in Bilthoven. She then wrote down her life story on behalf of the prioress. This document has been preserved and offers an interesting insight into the choices she made and is also an eyewitness account of her deportation.

In 1944 she was arrested for the second time and eventually died in Auschwitz.

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Source

• Text: Dick de Bruijne
• Photos: Dick de Bruijne