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Women’s gymnastics made its debut in the 1928 Olympic Summer Games held in Amsterdam, and Netherlands’ female gymnasts won the gold medal. The members of the 1928 Olympic gold winning Dutch team were:
- Coach: Gerrit Kleerekoper
- Alida van den Bos
- Estella Agsteribbe
- Jacomina van den Berg (1909-1996)
- Petronella Burgerhof
- Elka de Levie (survived)
- Helena Nordheim
- Anna Polak
- Petronella van Randwijk
- Hendrika van Rumt
- Judijke Simons
- Jacoba Stelma
- Anna van der Vegt
Five members of the gold winning team, highlighted in blue above, were Jewish. In 1943, these gold medalists and their coach were not immune to the horrors of the Nazi Regime. Like many of their fellow Dutch citizens, they were murdered at Sobibor and Auschwitz by the Nazis during Operation Reinhard.
On July 2, 1943, their Jewish coach Gerrit Kleerekoper along with his wife Kaatje and his fourteen-year-old daughter Elisabeth were murdered by the Nazis at the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland. Twenty nine days later, his 18 year old son Leendert was murdered at Auschwitz.
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