Moriz Reif

Moriz Reif was born in 1860 in Ungarish Ostra, Moravia (on the present-day Slovakian border). He had no middle name; any website that shows "Israel" is only reflecting the name the Nazi regime assigned to many or all Jewish men.

Moriz and Bertha Reif were removed from Bergen, Holland [Pension at Breelaan 47] in March 1942 to Amsterdam: Holbeinstraat 31 (see in MEDIA). See reference cards on the Reifs in the Arolsen Archives; search REIF. Moriz is labeled 1/25/1860).

Meanwhile, in New York, the Reifs' son Paul wrote on Feb.4, 1943 to his brother-in-law Dr. Ernest Kanitz (DL): "Two letters came from my parents from mid-October, at that time everything still seemed to have proceeded normally."

As it turned out, on March 25, 1943 the Reifs were moved from Amsterdam to the Nazi camp at Westerbork, Holland; from there they were quickly sent on to Sobibór (death camp) early April 1943. The latter fact only emerged decades later, including in memorial lists published by the Dutch government.

The Dutch Joodsmonument website lists three people from Holbeinstraat 31, Amsterdam, has having perished in the Holocaust, but not the Reifs. Their address of record in Holland remained Breelan 47, Bergen.

On May 11, 1946, after making a trip to Amsterdam to search for information, Paul had written to Ernst:

"Von den Eltern fand ich einige Photographien, die Du woh alle in Euren Albums hast, aus Mitterndorf etc., un die ich zwischen Deinen Kindern verteilen will. Sonst wenig. Aufklaerendes, Papa's Tod in Westerborg im Mai 43 steht zielich fest, Mama's Tod soll kurz darauf erfolgt sein, aber dafuer sind keine Zeugen da nur Hoerensagen, auch in Westborg. Ihre Moebel fand ich ei Janie Vater und habe sie ihm geschenkt. Von Fred. Cohen weiss man nichts -- das Testament ist da, aber das Ableben nicht beweisbar, eine komplizierte Situation fur mich, der dabei betroffen ist und gerne seine Schwester (die mittellos zurueckgekommen ist, 2 kinder verloren hat und eines mit TB behalten hat) gerne ihr Erbe zukommen lassen moechte.

Ams. ohne Juden ist ein erschuetternder indruck fur jeden der es freuher kannte. Von den Einwohnern allerdings merkt es fast keiner, sie sind einfach daran gewehnt. Personlich haben wir nur das Beste und Schoenste erlebt, aber ich habe naturlich auch Augen fur was mich zufaellig nicht selbst betrifft. Joanna & Thea senden viele Greusse..... "

"I found some of my parents' photographs, which you probably have in your albums, from Mitterndorf etc., which I want to distribute between your children. Little else. Enlightening: Papa's death in Westerborg in May '43 is certain, Mama's death is said to have happened shortly afterwards, but there are no witnesses to it, only hearsay, even in Westborg. I found her furniture at Janie's father's and gave it to him. From Fred. Cohen one knows nothing -- the[ir] Will is there, but the[ir] demise is not provable, a complicated situation for me, who is affected and [who] would like to send his inheritance to his [Cohen's] sister (who came back destitute, lost 2 children and kept one with TB).

Ams. without Jews is a shocking impression for everyone who knew it well. Almost no one notices it, among the inhabitants; they are simply used to it. Personally, we only experienced the best and most beautiful, but of course I also have eyes for what happens [re noticing...] not to happen to me."

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Birthdate is found in Geburtstags Merkbuch / Birthday Book of Ernestine Reif Schlesinger, in possession of Janet Lindner, ERS's great-grandaughter. Entry by Ernestine Reif Schlesinger, as Moritz, Jan. 25, 1860/Mittwoch. It also appears in Avotaynu records of Austrians having bank accounts at the time of the Holocaust. It also appears on the birth announcement of son Paul Reif, where father is named as "Moses (rechte Moriz) Reif."

Original birth record -- for Moses Singer (his parents were not yet married, as his father was not an oldest son) -- appears in Czech Jewish Registers, UHERSKÝ OSTROH (Ungarische Ostra, o. Uherské Hradiště), N (births) 1849 - 1875; 1876-1879, 1880-1881(i), January 25, 1860, Image #38 of 150. An entry at the far right of the page -- which is repeated on the birth record of Moses Singer's sister, Ernestine Reif (b. Nov. 19, 1865; Image # 58 of 150 -- states that parents, Samuel Reif & Betti/Babetti Singer, were married on May 10 (or 16), 1860.

Marriage. Moriz Reif married Bertha Strakoch on Sunday, April 19, 1891 in Wien: Reif, Moriz & Strakosch, Bertha after a 2-year engagement. Their engagement photograph (see in MEDIA) was made by the "premier society photographer of Vienna," Fritz Luckhardt.

Announcement of the marriage appeared April 17, 1891 in Die Neuzeit page 9 states it took place in "Temple of the VI Bezirk."

• Reif, Moriz (of Wien II, Obere Donaustrasse 47) & Strakosch, Bertha, per genteam.at Index of the Jewish Records of Vienna Num. 648. Witnesses were Bernhard Strakosch and Samuel Reif; their names are written in but are not original signatures.

Recorded in Indexes as taking place in "Stadttempel," the ceremony actually took place at Bertha's neighborhood synagogue, Schmalzhoftempel, a brand new building in Wien VI, Schmalzhofgasse 3, in the Mariahilf district. Built in 1883/84 in the neo-Gothic style, it was destroyed in November 1938 (Kristallnacht) and fully demolished in 1940. Die Mariahilfer Synagoge war ein Tempel des liberalen Reformjüdinnen- und judentums -- see in Images of 11 November 1938 (Kristallnacht).

At the time of their first child's birth in 1892 (Hedwig), Moriz and Bertha lived in Wien I, Deutschmeisterplatz 4, built 1875 by architect Rudolf Neumayr. This was just across the Donaukanal from where Moriz's father Samuel Reif lived.*

At the time of Moriz and Bertha's two youngest children's births in 1894 (Gertrude) and 1897 (Paul), the family lived at Wien I, Schottenring 17. Schottenring was a section of Vienna's Ringstraße, a road encircling the Innere Stadt district of Vienna, ordered by Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1857 to replace the ancient city walls with a promenade showcasing the grandeur and glory of the Habsburg Empire. The building at #17 -- Palais Léon -- had been built for industrialist Julian Léon in 1870 by Theodor Neumayer with Heinrich Ferstel.

While Moriz lived at Schottenring 17, two of his cousins, siblings Hermann Reif and Martha Reif, lived in Wien I., Schottenring 19. Hermann Reif was Malzfabrikant, (1901; Jahresbericht des Wissenschaftlichen Klub / Annual Report of the Scientific Club, Vols. 24-39, Vienna). Martha Reif married Max Pollak in 1906.

By 1906, and until "late 1938" (EKC), Moriz and Bertha Reif lived in Vienna's Third District (Landstrasser), Veithgasse 11, across from the grounds of the Belvedere Palace and gardens (Belvedere was the home from 1896 of Prince Franz Ferdinand, assassinated at Sarajevo in 1918). The apartment building at Veithgasse 11 had been built in 1876-77 by k.u.k. Oberbaurat Andreas Streit (architect). (Streit [1840-1916], who founded the Association of Architects "Wiener Bauhütte", was one of the authoritative architects of late Viennese historicism. His magnificent palaces and apartment buildings made use of the formal language of the neo-Renaissance or neo-Baroque. Very often they were also distinguished by rich sculptural decorations and elaborate staircases. With the advent of early modernism at the beginning of the 20th century, Streit's influence waned.)

Career. Moriz Reif was a successful dealer in grain, especially pearl barley [gersten]. Having gone into his father's & uncle's business, Sam. & Jacob Reif, Malzfabrik, in 1878 (at 18), he opened their branch office in Vienna in 1890 (announced Wiener Zeitung, Feb. 6, 1890, page 17, right side). Eventually he established his own company focused on barley trading in 1895 (announced in Gambrinus, Brauerei- und Hopfen-Zeitung on July 15, 1895, page 8, right side, just over halfway down). In 1896 he built a grain storage facility in Gramatneusiedl (Marienthal, 20 miles southeast of Vienna), near the Gramatneusiedl railway station (see in MEDIA). The famed Marienthal textile factory was nearby. By 1907 Moriz was "k. k. Kommerzialrat, Gersten-Exporteur, Borsenrat an der Börse für landwirtschaftliche Produkte" and 'advisor' to the Agricultural Commodity Exchange in Vienna. He had Gerstereif Wien as his personal telegraph address. In the book Der Alpinismus: Kultur, Organisation, Politik (WUV-Universitätsverlag, 1996) he is referred to as "Reif, Moriz, Kaufmann [Sam. & Jac. Reif], Wien II, Große Mohrengasse 3" (the firm's business address; across from the Commodities Exchange at 10 Taborstrasse).

Mentioned in American Brewers' Review, Vol. 21 (1907), pp. 375-78, named to an international commission to try and settle the complex question of how to valuate barley. The same debate is reflected (in German) in Zeitschrift für das gesammte Brauwesen, Volume 30 (1907), pp. 337, with Moriz Reif advocating for objective standards & methods for grading barley.

With his family and servants, Moriz Reif routinely vacationed in Altaussee, in the Styrian Alps, in August: On the published Guest List for July 8, 1908, he appears along with his father-in-law Bernhard Strakosch and his wife's cousins, the Emil Karpeles family.

Mentioned in Die Stimme, a Zionist newspaper Nov. 22, 1928, p. 2, for opposing views: http://edocs.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/volltexte/2008/38044/original/Stim...

Name (only) is listed in Lehman's Directory for the City of Vienna in 1938. Same for 1937.

About her grandfather EKC wrote, "When I told him I planned to be a nurse, he basically sneered, saying 'You may as well tell me you're going to be an actress!' That's how unacceptable it was--proper women became wives."

About the Reifs' apartment at Veithgasse 11, EKC wrote:

"It was a large place with very heavy wood furniture. Their bedrooms were beautifully furnished with big four-posters, chests of drawers and comfortable upholstered chairs. I recall a big dining room with a big table, beautifully carved, dark wood, and paintings. There was an adjoining room with a sofa, I believe, some chairs and two cherry wood Bösendorfer grand pianos on which Bertha and Gerty [Bertha's daughter] played duets now and then. And Bertha played quite a bit on her own, especially for me when I was there, as I loved piano music. The kitchen was fairly large with lots of cabinet space. Frau Anna, the superb cook with whom Moriz spoke Czech, reigned there for years. There might have been a pantry next to it. I recall numerous armoires, as closets did not exist. And many works of art on the walls. I think there were two bathrooms; one for the servants and one with tub for Moriz and Bertha. I went to the apartment a couple of days after Hitler troops took over in 1938, but that visit is a total blank in my memory. I just know I went there by myself on foot, very slowly and deliberately as instructed. Running was for the fearful and not recommended." One passed through the Stadtpark to reach the grandparents' apartment in Veithgasse.

Sometime after July 1938, Moriz & Bertha were evacuated, by their son Paul, to Holland. (The Dutch closed their borders to refugees in December 1938.) Paul had also arranged and paid for the evacuation to Holland and N.Y., and household move, of his sister Gertude Reif Kanitz and her family, who left Vienna in mid-June 1938. Once in Holland, Moriz and Bertha would or could not go on further (to the U.S.), and Paul could not have gotten them visas in any case since America's quota for Czechs (which Moriz and Bertha were, by birth) was full.

The five granddaughters of Moriz and Bertha never knew (or were never told...) specifically what became of them. What happened to their apartment at Veithgasse 11, with its many beautiful paintings and valuable pianos (at least two) is unknown. Moriz Reif was compelled, like all those of Jewish descent, to file an inventory form declaring all assets of value. His 7-page form (attached), signed July 13, 1938, lists financial holdings / stocks & bonds, and some art objects.

"The art theft committed by National Socialists in ­Austria was part of the systematically conducted robbery of the Jewish population . . . immediately after the Anschluss on March 12, 1938, the Gestapo, the SS and Nazi Party members ransacked apartments and confiscated paintings, jewelery, carpets and other items, using previously­ compiled address lists to find their way. Furnishings seized by the Gestapo were auctioned primarily through the Dorotheum auction house. In many cases, Jews attempting to finance their escape by quickly selling artwork were forced to accept offers by art dealers far below the objects’ value. Museums often purchased artwork from the possessions of Jewish collectors on whom the Central Office for the Protection of Monuments (Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz)[4] had imposed an export embargo. But the National Socialist regime was intent on putting its actions, including the seizure of artwork, on a legal footing. The bureaucratic apparatus employed for the seizures consisted of National Socialist organizations: existing authorities and legal measures dating from the First Republic and the Corporate State. They cooperated with art dealers, auction houses and other art experts. A number of decrees and laws "legalized" art theft. During the first weeks after the entry of German troops into Austria, numerous wild Aryanizations and lootings were carried out not just by Nazis and Gestapo agents, but also by policemen and Aryan neighbors. Thus numerous objects of value were irretrievably lost during the first days after the Anschluss. On April 27, 1938, the Reich Ministry for the Interior passed the Decree for the Registration of Jewish Property. Assets exceeding the total value of 5,000 Reichsmark had to be declared with the Property Registration Office. Numerous Jewish people forced to flee abroad had to apply for permission for the removal of goods based on the declared assets. In order to retain objects of historical, artistic or cultural value in the Third Reich, the National Socialist regime in Austria resorted to the Export Prohibition Law enacted in 1918 by the First Republic of Austria. To assess the value of art objects, professional opinions had to be obtained from appraisal officers appointed by the Property Transactions Office. These expert opinions were submitted to the Central Office for the Protection of Monuments which decided on the export permit. From 1939, copies of the expert opinions were also distributed to the Customs Investigations Office and the Dorotheum auction house to prevent any attempt at by-passing the strict export regulations. In addition, customs officers and representatives of the Central Office for the Protection of Monuments inspected removal goods which Jewish people forced into emigration wanted to take abroad. The strict export regulations forced many persecuted private persons to sell several works of art or whole collections at knockdown prices before emigrating.

Another way of applying pressure to obtain artwork was through discriminating tax demands imposed on Jewish people. The National Emigration Tax which had been introduced in Austria with the Anschluss was supplemented by the Jewish Property Levy in November 1938, amounting to half of the assets to be paid in taxes. It was impossible for most persons concerned to raise this amount, which resulted in the confiscation of their property. For the most part, the disposal of these goods was handled by the Dorotheum auction house in Vienna." -- Art Restitution in Austria.

In Holland, Bertha and Moriz lived in the upstairs of a pension near the North Holland village of Bergen, by the sea and dunes and the Bergen woods. One of their granddaughters wrote:

"I know that they were living in Bergen when we lived there. As a little girl I used to have Sunday dinner with them in their pension. Father would take me on the back of his bike. I must have been 4 and 5. It was an adventure for me. After dinner we would play tiddly-winks up in their room. Once I spilled some salt on the white tablecloth during dinner and they seemed furious with me and I remember dying of shame. In the U.S. at some point after the war we were told that both of them were probably deported to Auschwitz and probably died on the way there. Father had given his Mother something to take in just such an emergency (cyanide, I think, or arsenic) . . . he always said that his Mother was the strong[er] one [of the two]." --MHR via EKC email of May 1, 2001 (DL)

Moriz and Bertha Reif were in fact arrested, in Amsterdam, on 25 Mar 1943. A year before, they had been forced to move into Amsterdam. After their March 1943 arrest they were taken to Westerbork, the Germans' holding camp in northern Holland. From there a train left each Tuesday for "the east," taking three days to arrive (in their case, at Sobibór). Moriz and Bertha left Westerbork on 06 Apr 1943 (source: Herinneringscentrum kamp Westerbork, email G. Rossing Apr 5, 2016). They died on April 9, 1943 at Sobibór camp in Poland; see the Dutch Community Joods Monument online.

• Reif, Moriz Israel. 25-1-1860 Ostra, 9-4-1943 Sobibór
• Reif-Strakosch, Bertha Sara. 25-5-1870 Brünn, 9-4-1943 Sobibór

"Israel and Sara were names assigned to Jewish citizens by the Nazis. "Ordinary Austrians, Czechs, Germans, etc. did not generally have middle names, with the exception of Roman Catholics here and there" (their granddaughter EKC, email, Feb. 2007).

The law on names was, broadly speaking, part of to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 and 1938-39, which were passed by the Nazi Party. They included the Citizenship Law and the Law for the Defense of German Blood and Honor, to specifically outline who would be considered a Jew and who would therefore be subject to the Nuremberg Laws' exclusionary principles. The first supplemental decree defined a Jewish person as anyone who had at least three full Jewish grandparents, had two Jewish grandparents, and was married to a Jewish spouse, belonged to the Jewish religion at the time of the law's publication, or who entered the Jewish religion later. Mischlinge (the German legal term for those who had Aryan and Jewish blood) were also clarified to determine who would be considered a Jew. Those who were three-quarters Jewish were Jewish, as well as those who were half Jewish due to their choice to become Jewish via a Jewish spouse or through having joined a Jewish community. A second supplemental decree stated that Jewish professors, teachers, physicians, lawyers and notaries who were state employees and had previously been exempt would now be dismissed from their positions. The first decree to the Law for the Defense of German Blood and Honor stated which specific marriages were forbidden. These included those "between a Jew and a Mischling with one Jewish Grandparent, between a Mischling and another each with one Jewish Grandparent, and between a Mischling with two Jewish Grandparents and a German."

The second set of Nuremberg laws (1938-39, following the March 1938 annexation of Austria) established

• Decertification of all Jewish physicians, who were no longer allowed to treat German patients and forced to refer to themselves as "sick-treaters", a degrading term.
• March 22, 1938 Jews were forbidden from owning private gardens
• July 27, 1938 a decree was enforced stating all streets in Germany (which by now included the former Austria) needed to be renamed
• August 17, 1938: An executive order on the law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names required that by January 1, 1939, Jewish men and women bearing first names of "non-Jewish" origin [i.e. German-language names such as Moriz or Bertha] had to add "Israel" and "Sara," respectively, to their given names. Furthermore, all Jews were obliged to carry identity cards that indicated their Jewish heritage, and, in the autumn of 1938, all Jewish passports were stamped with an identifying letter "J".
• November 12, 1938 Jews were forbidden from attending movie theaters, the opera and concerts.
• November 15, 1938 Jewish children barred from attending public school
• The essential robbery of Jews became legal when Jews were forced on February 21, 1939 to turn in all jewelry of any value.

No. 33513 Reif Moriz 1860.01.25 Source: 30696 -- Recht als Unrecht – Property registrations in Vienna from 1838 to 1945, genteam.eu

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In Holland, "the general registration of Jews in 1941 [Moriz's son Paul Reif had left Holland for New York in December 1939]. At the beginning of January of that year, Reichskommissar Seyss-Inquart ordered everyone with at least one grandparent of Jewish descent to register before February 24. As far as is known, hardly anyone refused to do so. A total of 160,820 people registered themselves, of whom the Nazis perceived 140,001 to be Jewish, namely those with at least three grandparents of Jewish descent. During the registration process special forms were used to record personal information. This information was copied to catalog cards in the population register; afterward, the forms were sent to the Rijksinspectie van de Bevolkingsregisters (Inspectorate of Registries, RvB) in The Hague. Using the registration forms, the Inspectorate produced two copies of a special card catalog of Jews. One copy was assigned to the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung, the German agency responsible for the selection of the Jews to be transferred to Westerbork. In mid-July 1942 the transport of Jews from Westerbork to the death camps started . . . The sheer number of Jews in Amsterdam—80,000—delayed the entire project. For the German Sicherheitspolizei, this was too much time: it wanted to know the extent of the “Jewish threat” in the Netherlands as soon as possible. It began to instruct the Dutch municipalities province by province to hand over lists of their Jewish inhabitants . . . the Sicherheitspolizei again instructed the municipalities to produce lists of Jewish inhabitants in 1942. The provinces of Noord-Holland and Zeeland were the first to do so, in February 1942, probably a last checkup in preparation for the forced move of Jews in these provinces to Amsterdam preparatory to their transfer to Westerbork. There were 27 Jews registered in Bergen of whom 61.5% survived the German occupation of the Netherlands 1940-45. At the municipal level, five factors significantly correlate with the survival rate of Jews.

1. the percentage of local policemen who were pro-German. The greater this percentage, the lower the survival rate.
2. the percentage of Catholics. Contrary to what was expected based on the literature, the effect of this percentage was positive: Jews survived at a higher rate if relatively more Catholics lived in their municipality.
3. the extent of polarization (the fragmentation of Dutch society along denominational lines). The effect of this factor on the rate of survival was negative: a higher degree of polarization corresponded with fewer Jewish survivors.
4. the percentage of converted Jews. The positive effect of that factor on the rate of survival is not just an indication that converts to Christianity were more likely to survive than Jews who had not been baptized. It also means that other Jews were saved by making use of the social networks of the converts, who bridged the Jewish and Gentile worlds.
5. the date of the start of the local deportations. Contrary to the expectation, the rate of survival decreased significantly when this start happened later . . . [there was a] relative lack of resistance in the Netherlands prior to May 1943. The result supposedly was that until that time Jews had trouble finding places to hide and consequently, few of them managed to go underground. This changed following the April–May strike of 1943. After the bloody suppression of this strike a few hundred thousand Dutchmen's avoiding labor conscription proved that it was relatively easy to go underground. By this time, however, most of the Jews who would not survive the German occupation had already been killed. They had needed hiding places when they were not yet available (or had been lost). [This applies to Moriz Reif and his wife Bertha Strakosch Reif, who died April 9, 1943 in a death camp in Poland].

The lack of resistance [to the Nazis] in the Netherlands is contrasted with the situation in Belgium, where there was more organized resistance on the part of the Jews themselves -- and at an earlier time . . . more Jews must have been arrested in hiding than [has previously been thought]. At least 12,000 were apprehended in hiding, and there are indications that the real number could have been several thousand higher . . . estimates of the numbers of Jews caught in hiding depend on the quality of the registration of the so-called Straffälle -- Jews liable for punishment for having hidden (approximately 80% of cases) or for other “crimes.” This registration was performed by the Jewish administration in Westerbork and is known to have been incomplete. Until April 1943 those Jews designated as Straffälle sometimes were not registered as such on arrival in Westerbork. Having been warned by Jews who worked in the administration, they managed to get rid of their call-up orders or identity cards, which were marked by the “S” for Straffall. In April 1943 the Sicherheitspolizei revised its registration system and, instead of marking the call-up order or identity card, started to send lists of Straffälle to Westerbork. At the same time, quite often the regional bureau of the Sicherheitspolizei sent Straffälle to Westerbork without designating them as such. In Rotterdam, for example, at least 897 Jews were arrested in hiding, but according to the Westerbork registers only 285 Jews from Rotterdam arrived in Westerbork as Straffälle (of whom approximately 80 percent were caught in hiding). This means that in the case of Rotterdam the official numbers underestimate by more than three times the number of Jews caught while hiding.

The regional Sicherheitspolizei bureaus in the Netherlands differed in their efforts to capture Jews in hiding. According to the registers in the Westerbork archive, the bureau in Maastricht was responsible for the arrest of 52 Jews from April 1943 to the liberation. This includes Jews arrested by the Dutch police who were handed over to the Germans. There were 5,094 Straffälle known to have been sent by the Amsterdam bureau to Westerbork during the same interval (including Jews arrested by the Dutch police and the Kolonne Henneicke). Even when the size of the Jewish population under both bureaus is taken into account, the "success" of the Amsterdam bureau is still ten times greater than Maastricht’s. For the whole of the Netherlands there are indications that the “success” rate of the seven regional bureaus of the Sicherheitspolizei was [inversely] correlated with the rate of survival that Jews experienced -- more “success” meaning fewer survivors. [It is estimated that] on May 9, 1943, 1,604 Gentiles were incarcerated for having helped Jews. This amounted to 30% of all the Dutch Gentiles held in “protective custody” at that time, not a small proportion (usually, if Gentiles who helped Jews were punished, they were punished with short-term Schutzhaft, or protective custody; only severe cases were sent to concentration camps in Germany). Slightly more than a year later, the number had increased to 1,997 Gentiles 20% of the total number at that time. Although these statistics are not conclusive, they still suggest the extent of help given to Jews as well as the extent of the Sicherheitspolizei’s retaliation.

--"The Holocaust in the Netherlands and the Rate of Jewish Survival" by Marnix Croes. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, v20 n3, Winter 2006, pp. 474-499.

As early as 1949, the Dutch government possessed knowledge of the fate of Jewish deportees: the deaths of Moriz and Bertha at Sobibór were documented in Bergen records on December 15, 1949 (OpenArchive of Dutch and Belgian genealogical records, North Holland Archives Image 79/80).

A memorial stone honoring 17 Jews of nearby Bergen murdered during the war was unveiled in May 2000 in the Allied Military Cemetery on the Kerkedijk in Bergen. In about 2005, a list of Dutch victims' names came online. In 2010, the Dutch government formally apologized to Holland's Jewish community for "the actions of the Dutch population and government during the Second World War and its aftermath."

Yad Vashem entry is at http://db.yadvashem.org/names/nameDetails.html?itemId=4285103&langu...

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"On March 28 [2020], two Stolpersteine ["stumbling blocks"] will be placed by the German artist Gunter Demnig in front of the pension "De Haemstede" in Bergen NH, the place where Moriz Reif and Bertha Reif Strakosch lived before they were deported via Amsterdam and Westerbork to Sobibór. Eighteen ... Jewish victims will have a Stolperstone in Bergen or in Amsterdam that day." -- Frans Leijen, Boardmember of the Historic Association of Bergen NH.

Moriz and Bertha's address at time of deportation was: Breelaan 47, Bergen (NH) per Digital Monument website listed above. It says "the addresses are those entered in 1941 and 1942 on the forms used to compile the [Nazi] register lists. The address used closest to 1 February 1941 was designated as the primary address" by those creating the online monument. See Holland Deportations site.

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• In 1938 a Nathan Isak Strakosch, b. 21 Nov 1858 in Wessely, Mähren, lived at Deutschmeisterplatz 4 with wife Rebekka ___ (born Regina, 22 Sept 1855 in Rakonitz, W of Prague--a brewery town). They were deported June 20, 1942 and Rebekka died at Theresienstadt on Aug. 30, 1942. Nathan's death date is not known.