Stumbling Stones Esdoornlaan
Joseph & Henriëtte Lion
The Stolpersteine at Esdoornlaan 8 were laid on November 26, 2021 for the German Jews Joseph Lion and his wife Henriëtte Lion-Herz. They left this address on April 2, 1943 with their grandsons, Günther and Walter Zilversmit (16 and 15 years old) for the Westerbork camp. On April 20, 1943, Lion and his wife went to Theresienstadt (in the present-day Czech Republic) and later to Auschwitz. Their deaths are dated October 30, 1944. They were 68 and 63 years old at the time. The two grandsons survived the Second World War and emigrated to Canada.
The years up to Nunspeet
Joseph Lion was born on 1 December 1875 in Viersen (Germany), Henriëtte Herz on 15 June 1881 in Wurm. They lived in Duisburg-Ruhrort. Lion’s profession was butcher. They had four daughters: Henriëtte (born 1902), Helene (1907), Erna (1908) and Bertha (1914). Joseph Lion left for the Netherlands in 1934 and went to live in The Hague at Jan van Nassaustraat 38.
Daughter Henriëtte or Hedi or Hedwig was married to the cattle dealer Karl Zilversmit from Leer (born 6 June 1888 in Hengelo). Hedi had studied piano and singing and sang in the State Opera in Leipzig. Their two children Günther and Walter grew up in Leer. In 1938, the parents decided to send their then 12-year-old son Günther on holiday to the Netherlands, with the thought in the back of their minds that he would never return. The ‘Progromnacht’ in Leer on 11 November 1938 was terrible for the Zilversmit family and other Jews in Leer. In February 1939, son Walter was also able to go to the Netherlands on a children’s transport. But it was not until 5 May 1940 that he was able to go and live with his grandparents.
There is no trace of the parents of Günther and Walter Zilversmit during the course of the war. It is assumed that they died in Lublin around 1942.
After the German occupation in 1940, German Jews had to leave the coastal strip and therefore The Hague. Lion and his wife found a boarding house in Nunspeet with Günther and Walter and were registered at Spoorlaan 12 from 22 October 1940. A cousin Helene Lion also came along, as did daughter Sara Berta and her husband Rudolph Levy. Berta and Rudolph had married in The Hague in February 1940. They left for Utrecht in February 1941. Cousin Helene went to Zwolle in December 1941 as a servant for the Deutschkron family. (Husband, wife and son died in Auschwitz, Helene is listed as missing).
On 28 February 1941 the Lions moved to Esdoornlaan 8, the boarding house of Antje van der Veer. The two boys cycle to school in Harderwijk. When they were no longer allowed to go to school as Jewish boys, Günther became an apprentice to a blacksmith at Smeepoortbrink in Harderwijk. When Jews were forbidden to own bicycles, Günther entered the service of blacksmith Willem van Slooten at the Laan in Nunspeet. A photo of this has been preserved in the possession of the Van Slooten family, in which the second from the left is Günther and the second from the right is Walter:
Walter and Günther at the blacksmith van Slooten
The original house
The original house at Esdoornlaan 8 was replaced by a double house in 2008. Photos from the fifties still give an impression of the original house. The house was right in front of Lindelaan.
Lion had been a butcher and had contact with butcher Schmal at the beginning of Laan. Lion did odd jobs and daughter Willemijn Schmal still remembers in 2021 that she sat on Joseph Lion’s lap as a little girl. The family owns a bowl that was only used during the Jewish Passover.
Preferential treatment...
In 1943, all Jews had to report to the camps of Westerbork or Vught. Joseph Lion refused to hear of the advice to hide the two grandsons. On 2 April 1943, they left for Westerbork. From Westerbork, Lion and his wife left for Theresienstadt in the then Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia (now the Czech Republic) and not for Auschwitz. This had to do with the fact that Lion had been a front-line soldier in the First World War. It was preferential treatment.
Günther and Walter Zilversmit remained in Westerbork, but in January 1944 they also had to go to Theresienstadt.
To demonstrate the preference, this was done by regular train. During the journey, the train passed through their birthplace Leer. In Theresienstadt, the boys met their grandparents and were shocked. They had lost a lot of weight. On 28 September 1944, the two were selected to go to Auschwitz. Later, Joseph Lion and Henriëtte Herz would also go to Auschwitz and die.
Arriving in Auschwitz, Günther was given number D 12806 and Walter D 12807. Both reported to work as welders at Gleiwitz, an outside camp for ‘Stafettenherstellung’. With the arrival of the Russians, the camp was evacuated and a ‘death march’ began, during which the Jews were left to their fate.
Via detours, Günther and Walter ended up in Odessa in April 1945, were shipped on the English troop transport ship Monoway in June and reached Marseille in July.
They had survived the Holocaust.
