Yad Vashem installs synagogue stained glass window that survived Holocaust
The stained glass that once hung in a synagogue in Holland now hang in Yad Vashem's synagogue as a reminder of the once-thriving Jewish community.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFThe shul in Holland where the stained-glass originally hung(photo credit: YAD VASHEM)
A set of stained-glass windows that once hung in Assen are now hanging in Yad Vashem's synagogue some eighty years after the start of World War II as a reminder of the once thriving Jewish community in Holland.
In the beginning of the 1930s, Abraham van Oosten began working on the stained-glass windows for his local synagogue, and they were installed in 1932 in Assen. Van Oosten died in 1937, leaving behind his wife Heintje and their three children, Gonda, Leo and Johanna.
In 1940, the Germans occupied Holland and began imposing anti-Jewish legislation throughout the country. Leo van Oosten was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where he perished.
Two years later, in October, the Jews of Assen were deported to the Westerbork transit camp, including Heintje and the van Oosten daughters. There, Gonda met and married Asher Gerlich, a Zionist pioneer. They were deported to Bergen-Belsen where they managed to survive despite terrible conditions. Gonda's mother and sister were sent to Auschwitz where they died. The stained-glass window that once hung in the synagogue in Holland (Credit: Yad Vashem)
Gonda, the sole survivor of the van Oosten family, changed her first name to Tamar and moved with her husband to Israel in 1946. They changed their surname to Ben Gera and established Kibbutz Bet Keshet in the Lower Galilee where they had seven children.
Most of the Jews of Assen didn't survive the Holocaust. While a few returned, they weren't able to reestablish a Jewish community. The synagogue was sold to the Protestant community and converted into a church.
Tamar Ben Gera learned of this – and that it was scheduled for demolition – and decided to save the stained-glass windows her father had designed. In a complication operation, several of the decorative windows were dismantled and sent to Israel, where they were installed in the dining hall of the kibbutz where she and her family lived.
In 2016, Ben Gera approached Yad Vashem to help move the windows from the dining hall to the Mount of Rememberance, to be preserved for posterity.
This is where the stained-glass windows hang today, in a Jewish house of worship. The synagogue is a unique space where visitors can gather in prayer, while viewing Judaica rescued from European countries that have been restored.
