Kestenberg Archive

AR was born in 1932 in Amsterdam. His father was Polish and his mother Dutch, and he had an older sister. AR describes having a good and comfortable life. His family were not religious, but he learnt Hebrew and Yiddish. AR describes the German invasion and the changes it caused in his life, namely the outburst of “latent anti-Semitism”. AR's father had a garment making business and this saved the family from raids and deportations, as the Germans needed his factory to make raincoats for the army. In April 1942 the family was rounded up to be deported, but AR and his sister managed to escape the deportation. The Dutch underground put them both in hiding, separately. AR was sent from house to house in north Holland, until he stayed for two and a half years with one family in Bolsward in the Friesland province under false papers. This Christian family treated him like their own son, and they continued to remain in contact long after the war. His sister survived the war and they were reunited afterwards. They returned to Amsterdam together, where they restarted their father's factory. AR went to school but found it very difficult to be motivated in learning. The family who hid him during the war emigrated to America and sponsored him to join them. AR moved to America in July 1954. He later married and had two children. ; He went to night school but now realises what he missed out on, and strongly encourages his children to have a good education. He suffers from stomach ulcers that he believed he developed from the stress and worry he endured during the war. He often has nightmares about his children being torn away from him, and finds it hard to be exposed to media and literature on the Holocaust.