Mary North J. interviewed a close family friend, Rose, about her life as a Jew during the Holocaust.
by Mary North J., Grade 4

Mary North Jones interviewed a close family friend, Rose Van Thyn, about her life as a Jew in the Netherlands during the Holocaust. That was when the German Nazis murdered more than 6 million people, most of whom were Jewish, during World War II (1939–1945).


Rose Van Thyn never gave up. At 87 years old, Rose has a story to tell: it's not just any story, it's the story of how she survived the Holocaust.

Rose was born in 1921 in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. She had one sister and 35 first cousins. Her father ran a business, and she and her sister went to school. Rose did not think nor have any idea that someone like Hitler would disrupt her normal, day-to-day life.

The Holocaust was the murder of about 6 million Jews by Adolf Hitler and his followers, the Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933. The Nazis thought they were better than everyone else, especially Jews, and felt they should be the only type of people that existed. They forced their way across Europe and into Rose's country.

Hitler had the names of the Jews. He forced all Jews, like Rose, to quit school. The Jews also were given a curfew of 8 p.m. He made them wear a Star of David, the Jewish holy symbol, on their clothes.

In 1942, the Nazis came to Amsterdam and rounded up all the Jews, including Rose, her family, and her husband Moses. They were driven out of town in a cattle car and taken to Auschwitz in Poland, the biggest concentration camp in existence. They were told to bring food and clothes. When they arrived at the death camp, Rose was chosen along with 100 other women so the Nazis could perform horrible medical experiments. Her parents and sister went straight to the gas chambers, a device the Nazis used to mass murder Jews. Rose's husband was sent to work in the fields. She never saw any of them again. In 1944, Moses died of typhus.

By 1945, Hitler was losing the war, and the Nazis led the Jews at Auschwitz on the Death March to Germany. Rose marched with a group of women until they were liberated by the Americans. Rose finally walked back to Amsterdam. Of all the people Rose knew before the Holocaust, not one returned. In her family only she and one cousin survived! While she was in Amsterdam, she met Louie Van Thyn, who was looking for his family as well. He asked Rose out for dinner and they soon got married.

Amsterdam was different when Rose came back. It was not the same wonderful place it was before she left. Louie and Rose stayed several years, and in 1952, they moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, where they raised their two children and lived for 57 years. Rose still leaves in Shreveport, but Louie died in 2008.


Interviewing Rose, I learned that the Holocaust was so much more than we learn in school. I never thought one man, Hitler, could have so much hate for innocent people that he did not even know—just because of their religion. Rose says "Never give up." I will try to live up to her words.