The previously unknown diary of 18-year-old Helga Deen - who was murdered along with her family by the Nazis at the Sobibor death camp in 1943 - has been loaned to the Tilburg Regional Archive in the Netherlands.
In her diary, Helga describes her experiences, feelings and surroundings at the Dutch Vught concentration camp in the month before she and her family were transported to Sobibor. 15,000 Jews were held in the Vught concentration camp between January 1943 and September 1944. Over 1,000 Jewish children imprisoned at Vught were killed at Sobibor, Poland.
Helga's diary, along with other personal possessions, was held by the son of Kees van den Berg, who had a relationship with the young Jewish woman during World War II. The Dutch Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), the Tilburg archivist, as well as other Dutch researchers have called the diary "remarkable" and "exceptional."
In her last letter in the collection loaned to the Tilburg archives, Helga Deen writes, "What we have experienced these months is indescribable and for someone who has not experienced it, unimaginable."
For more information (in Dutch), see www.archievendag.nl.
In her diary, Helga describes her experiences, feelings and surroundings at the Dutch Vught concentration camp in the month before she and her family were transported to Sobibor. 15,000 Jews were held in the Vught concentration camp between January 1943 and September 1944. Over 1,000 Jewish children imprisoned at Vught were killed at Sobibor, Poland.
Helga's diary, along with other personal possessions, was held by the son of Kees van den Berg, who had a relationship with the young Jewish woman during World War II. The Dutch Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), the Tilburg archivist, as well as other Dutch researchers have called the diary "remarkable" and "exceptional."
In her last letter in the collection loaned to the Tilburg archives, Helga Deen writes, "What we have experienced these months is indescribable and for someone who has not experienced it, unimaginable."
For more information (in Dutch), see www.archievendag.nl.