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The Holocaust: Lest We forget - Sion

 

      
       My wife and I were born in Oosterhout, a small town in the south of the Netherlands. We still live there with our two daughters Steffie (1988) and Marjolein (1990). Marijke was born 12 April 1959 and I am from 18 June 1958. We got married on 17 October 1980. We had been dating since we were 15. I guess you could say it was love at first sight and we have been with each other ever since.

       I went to a Roman Catholic boy's school in Oosterhout. It was a strict school where all too often pupils received corporal punishment if they had done something the teacher didn't approve of. After that I got a decent education and ultimately started a career in retail. I was fortunate enough to get my promotions on time and presently I'm area manager for the largest shoe retailer in the Netherlands. I'm responsible for 20 shops in the provinces of Noord-Brabant, Zeeland and Zuid-Holland. Marijke is a full time Mom. Earlier she worked in a planning office for a company that manufactured bricks and draining pipes.

      As far as I can remember I have been interested in the Second World War and more in particular in the Holocaust. Ever since a teacher told me about the 'Diaspora' I have studied 'the Holocaust'. My mum and dad were victims of the nazi-regime. My mum was forced to find shelter in the small town of Drimmelen at the age of 12 and my dad was incarcerated in the jail of Breda and KZ Amersfoort and was deported to several concentration camps in Germany at the age of 18 and lived to suffer the consequences untill he died in 2004. I'm not interested in guns, battles and great generals, but the stories of those who suffered are of interest to me.

      I had my own websites dealing with "The Second World War" and the "The Holocaust" and as a result I met Hans Vanderwerff. I can't exactly remember what brought us together, but it must have been my lucky day. Our first contact was in 2002 through e-mail. I visited his website frequently and was very impressed with his knowledge of the Holocaust and with the way he shared that knowledge with us. It is not often that one comes across a website that is built with such great love and respect! However his website is one of those. In 2003 when he and his lovely wife Vonnie were in the Netherlands he called and asked me to meet him. So I went to meet Hans en Vonnie and immediately felt the good vibes between us.
 
       Usually I'm rather shy and I wouldn't quickly agree to meet someone I know so little about. But from the start this felt right. We talked the whole morning and during that conversation he asked me if I was interested in maintaining his website since he felt the burden of age and was afraid that all his efforts would have been in vain should something happen to him. I was of course extremely honoured but also somewhat concerned. Would I be able to contribute to his website? Was I the right man to take on a task of that magnitude? Well, Hans thought so and I agreed to his proposal. In 2005 I became the webmaster of his website.

       At the end of 2007 we started preperations to migrate the website to a new server and its own website address, which I was lucky to obtain. The contents of the website is the same as Hans initialy wrote it, but the lay out has been altered and a navigation menu has been added..
..........Sion Soeters