Jewish War Graves Ellecom

On Ellecom Special Cemetery is a collective grave for three Jewish war casualties from The Netherlands. On the grave a remembrance-stone is erected with a Jewish star and inscriptions in Hebrew and the Dutch language. The graves are registered by the Dutch War Graves Commission.

The men died during heavy forced labour on Avegoor Estate in Ellecom in 1942.

Background SS-Schule Avegoor 1941 - 1944 in Ellecom
From May 1, 1941, Landgoed Avegoor was used as a training camp for the Nederlandssche-SS under the name SS-Schule Avegoor. The school was part of the German Waffen-SS, an education and training center for men of the Dutch SS.
Two service buildings, a sports field and a gym were constructed on Landgoed Avegoor. The construction of the sports field and the filling in of the swamp for the construction of the gymnastics hall was carried out by Jewish men from Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.
The Jewish forced laborers were housed in the attic of Villa Irene, located on Zutphensestraatweg in Ellecom. The labor camp was named "Palästina" by the Ellecom population.

At the beginning of September 1942, 139 Jewish men arrived in Ellecom, who were forced under inhumane conditions to carry out the heavy groundwork for the sports field and gym. The work took 11 weeks. Three Jewish forced laborers succumbed to the effects of extreme working conditions, lack of food and abuse.

They were Alfred Tuvij 50 years old, born in Romania, from Rotterdam, Jacob de Lion, 40 years old from Amsterdam and 41 year old Meier de Groot from Rotterdam. They were buried in the Special Cemetery in Ellecom. The other 136 men were taken to Camp Westerbork in Drenthe on November 21, 1942, where 12 of more than 100 men who were admitted to a hospital barracks died. Many others later died in the German extermination camps in Eastern Europe.

The gymnastics hall is currently being renovated. It is the only monument in our country with National Socialist architecture. On November 3, 1945, 33 former Jewish forced laborers from Avegoor visited Ellecom to commemorate their dead. On September 6, 1998, Mr Max Deen (deceased in 2012) - the last Jewish survivor - unveiled a monument in memory of Camp Palästina, the Jewish Table with 139 stones in Ellecom, next to Villa Irene on the Zutphensestraatweg. Every week flowers and wreaths are laid at the monument, from the crematorium in Dieren.

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Source

• Text: Fedor de Vries & Henk IJbema (Lid Het Huis Doesburg / Vesting Doesburg)
• Photos: Fedor de Vries