Almelo, The Netherlands, June 1933
in juni 1933
Herman de Leeuw lived between the two world wars. He was born in Almelo on 28 November 1919 and he died on his mother’s forty-fifth birthday, 7 July 1939, on the eve of World War II.
Herman was Arnold and Louisa de Leeuw’s problem child. He was born with several disabilities and died young at 19. Herman had a brother, Johan, who was four years older and a two year older sister, Mimi. As the picture shows, during the later years of his short life Herman enjoyed working in his vegetable garden.
Three years after his death, in summer 1942, the shed in the background was used to store some of the family’s furniture when the De Leeuws had to go in hiding.
Herman is buried in Almelo’s public cemetery. Because of his birth defects he had not been circumcised, in 1939 reason for the Almelo kehilla (Jewish Community) to ban him from the Jewish cemetery.
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