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Genealogy Services

Please contact me if you’re in the need of Genealogy related services (research, preparations, trips, etc).

You may contact me for any country
(such as Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Israel, etc).

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Tag: Netherlands

  • Passenger lists from the Holland-America Line (HAL) at the Rotterdam City Archives

    Between 1900 and 1969 millions of people traveled and emigrated with the ships of the Holland-America Line.

    The Holland-America Line (HAL), originally a Dutch transatlantic cruise company, offered full trips, but emigrants also made use of the HAL. Many Dutch people do have relatives who have migrated to the United States or Canada. There is a good chance that they have used the HAL services.

    Also, many Polish Jews traveled via Rotterdam to New York. Between 1880 and 1920, approximately one million Eastern Europeans traveled to America via Rotterdam. The Holland America Line had offices in Bulgaria, Latvia, and Russia where tickets could be purchased for the train to Rotterdam, the boat to America and again the train to every station in the New World. The list also shows that they booked their trip in their native country.

    These passenger lists (“passagiersstaten”) are handwritten lists with information about who made the crossing to the promised land with which ship and when. It was also recorded how much the passengers paid for the trip and in which class they traveled.

    These sources are one of the most consulted

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  • Justin Gerstner – 5 November 1921, Ebelsbach (Germany) – October 31, 1944, Wolsum (Netherlands)

    Justin Gerstner – 5 November 1921, Ebelsbach (Germany) – October 31, 1944, Wolsum (Netherlands)

    The following post was already published on my old website. I am now republishing it with some corrections.

    Justin Gerstner (Source: www.tsjerkwert.nl)

    Justin was born on 5 November 1921 as the son of Salomon Gerstner and Frieda Sundermann in the village of Ebelsbach which is in the German state of Bavaria (according to the NIOD he was born on 5 February 1921). The town of Ebelsbach is about 20 km northwest of Bamberg and about 86 km north of Nuremberg. The Gerstners are originally from Lisberg and its area in Bavaria.

    According to a letter (of 12 maart 2004) from the NIOD to Ms. Kappner from Haszfurt (Germany), Justin fled in 1934 from Nazi-Germany. He initially lived with his uncle Joseph Gerstner in Enschede. Justin appeared on the Enschede list of the “Zentralstelle fßr judisch Auswanderung” (the Zentralstelle fßr judisch Auswanderung was the Amsterdam office of the Nazi Sicherheitspolizei and the SD, which supervised the deportation of Jews from the Netherlands. Ferdinand Hugo aus der Fßnten was in charge of this office, which was situated in the Euterpestraat).

    Justin worked as an office clerk in Enschede and, according to the above mentioned list of the Zentralstelle, he lived on

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  • Adir Hu in a Dutch Jewish advertisement

    Dutch people appear to have a fondness with regards to poems. I remember since I was a kid until today that at festivities such as Bar Mitzvah’s, birthday parties, weddings, et cetera, children and adults alike enjoy to recite poems (it probably is not only the Dutch people who share that fondness, but anyhow).

    A Dutch company which was trying to promote its wines did exactly that: they created a lovely poem based on the tune of the Adir Hu song which is traditionally sung at the Seder of Pesach.

    What is Pesach?
    Pesach (Passover) is the yearly festival which starts on 15 Nissan for 7 days (in the diaspora 8 days). Pesach commemorates the freedom of the Jews after they had to endure torture and slavery under the Ancient Egyptians.

    In Israel the first night is traditionally celebrated with the Seder (outside Israel it is celebrated the first two nights). The Seder is the festive meal during which the whole family and their guests sit and eat around the table and read and sing from the Hagaddah. The Hagaddah is an ancient book in which the story of the exile out of Egypt is being told. The Hagaddah was created around Talmudic times with some pieces added in later times.

    Adir hu
    One of the songs in the end of Hagaddah is called Adir Hu which really has nothing to do with Pesach per se. It was also sung in other times of joy. It started to appear in German Haggadoth of the fourteenth

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