Rose Jakobs

During the Second World War Jews were persecuted across Europe by the German occupiers. At first they were confronted with discrimination but this would soon turn to deportation and extermination. It resulted in the murder of about 6 million Jews. Over 100.000 Dutch Jews were murdered. Rose Jakobs was one of the many Dutch Jews who had to go into hiding to stay alive. Like Anne Frank, Rose was a German girl. She had fled Germany with her family looking for a safer place to stay. After the German occupation of the Netherlands she wasn’t safe here either. She went into hiding in Nijmegen and Beek and wrote in her diary during this entire period. On 20 May 1943 she wrote: “I often think that we have a very small chance to get out alive of this hell of horrors. First the chance of being discovered, and then the bombs, the Krauts. But then I often think of the night prayer: ‘The Eternal is with me and I‘ll fear no one’” Her diary tells the story of a girl in the prime of her live who is forced to live a caged existence. Operation Market Garden meant liberation for Rose. She could finally come out of hiding but then tragedy struck. When Rose is out on the street she is hit by a bomb fragment and she dies from her wounds. Her diary was published 55 years after her death.