Remembering Sara Kloot Roodveldt and Her Family

Katie Fisher, Research Assistant, Belofsky Fellow
Piyush Kamdar, MS Information Sciences
Riya Sood, Graduate Teaching Assistant

On May 31, 1940, The New York Times reported on a ceremony staged by the Third Reich which showed the transfer of the civil powers of the former Kingdom of the Netherlands to a Reich minister. The event took place in the same location in which the Dutch monarchy used to open the chambers of Parliament each year. Rather than Dutch troops, it was German Nazis who ushered in “Holland’s new era.”[1] Though the Dutch had lost the war, the article reported some sense of relief; it seemed as though converting the Dutch to Nazism and treating Jews harshly had not immediately materialized. The article ended with details about restoring the postal system and communications with other nations. The message from the Third Reich was clear—they had taken over the bureaucracy of The Netherlands.

The Digital Studies of the Holocaust case study on “The Women of the Holocaust: The Netherlands” focuses on creating visualizations of data that were collected by the Reich and used to track their victims as they were pushed through a bureaucratic system designed to lead to death camps on the other side of Europe. Women were more vulnerable victims of the Third Reich than men and yet their experiences are relatively unknown. This case study recognizes one woman from Amsterdam, Sara Kloot Roodveldt, and her family. The visualizations retrace her journey and highlight her experiences—seeking to do the very thing the Third Reich worked so hard to prevent—remember her life and consider it important.

Because the Third Reich sought to destroy any reference to the life and existence of women like Sara Kloot Roodveldt, the archive card she was forced to keep from 1940 to 1943 remains the primary source of information for the final years of her life. Sara’s archive card is kept by The Amsterdam City Archives and records 13 entries in a three-year timeframe.[2] Her husband, Abraham Roodveldt, as well as two children, Jacques and Klaartje, and her brother Nathan Kloot were all issued archive cards as well. Through this system of reporting and recording, the Third Reich was able to keep tabs on Jews living in Amsterdam—key information for when Sara and her family were ultimately rounded up and deported to Auschwitz and Sobibor extermination camps in Poland.

One entry in the family’s archive cards place them all living together, with Sara’s brother Nathan, at Achtergracht 35 Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1941. Nathan Kloot was eventually taken as a prisoner to Mauthausen Prison Camp where he died on Oct. 11, 1942. Amsterdam police records from 1941 show Nathan Kloots’s name. These records are available through The Amsterdam City Archive. The archive also maintains records of both Nathan and Abraham’s military registration. These records are important because they show that the Roosevelt and the Kloot families were active participants in Dutch society.

As was implied in the article from The New York Times, while it initially looked as though the Dutch government would be able to carry on, somewhat, as before with little disruption to citizens—the most brutal aspects of the Third Reich’s control over The Netherlands were not revealed until 1941 when Dutch citizens like Sara, her children, Abraham, and Nathan were deported and murdered. Retracing the locations marked on each family member’s archive card provides a way to remember the final years of their lives—in doing so we recognize and attempt to honor her life, a life that the Nazis worked to completely erase.

References:

[1] The New York Times Wireless to, “German Civil Rule Set up in Holland: Seyss-Inquart Assumes Power in Former Kingdom-Pledges Quick Reconstruction a Ceremony Is Staged Nazi Soldiers Fill Ridderzaal and Wagner Music Is Prelude to Proclamation a German Ceremony Plea for Friendship,” The New York Times (1923-) (New York, N.Y.), 05/31/1940, 1940, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/german-civil-rule-set-up-holland/docview/105488652/se-2?accountid=7120. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times.

[2] “Amsterdam City Archives,” The City of Amsterdam, https://archief.amsterdam/indexen/persons.