Remembering a Murdered Child

Based on the book "In Memoriam" by Guus Luijters, the gripping film ttells the story of 9 anonymous Dutch children who were deported from the Netherlands and murdered. Former non-Jewish classmates, neighborhood children and friends, tell about their murdered Jewish boyfriend and girlfriend. These are small childhood memories, that tell about a bow in the hair of a girl, a frog in a well, or the big brown eyes of a baby. Former Dutch cabinet Minister Frits Korthals Altes remembers his classmate Riekje Teixeira de Mattos; she was 13-years old when she was killed in Auschwitz. Dutch actress Nelly Frijda remembers the baby Edje van Sijes whom she was babysitting at the beginning of the occupation. Edje was four years old when he was murdered in Sobibor. Photographer Eddy Posthuma de Boer talks about the twins brothers Harold and Paul Duizend. He waved 'goodbye' to them at the Olympia Square in Amsterdam, as they sat in tram-line 24 when they made their one way trip were to Westerbork and Auschwitz. Writer-journalist Henk ten Berge, who lived in the province city of Alkmaar, tells about his friend Peter Israels, and the 'story of the frog'. After all Jews of Alkmaar were rounded up, he never saw him again. Nothing is known about the eleven-year-old Sientje Abram, who lived in Rapenburgerstraat in Amsterdam, except the fact that she was killed in Auschwitz. No photo, no memory. Guus Luijters has made a reconstruction and tells in the film about her, based on the summary of data on her short life in the old Jewish quarter of Amsterdam.