Judith (on right hand side) and her siblings, 1936

My new white bag that I bought last year was really disturbing me. A few nights ago I could not sleep because of it. 

I started to remember what had happened to my two previous white bags. I don’t like to remember the past. I try to suppress it.

 In l942, when I was nine years old, the Germans occupied Holland. Life became full of restrictions. I had to leave my local school and go to a school for Jewish children that was in the center of The Hague. It was quite a walk and not in the nicest of streets. One day, going to school with a new white bag I wanted to show my friends, I was attacked by a gang of girls. They pulled my hair, punched me and ran away laughing, with my bag.

After I came home bruised, my mother said, "no more school - too dangerous."

One day, I opened the door for our neighbor. She had come to ask for our valuables. Hearing that, I ran to my room to show her my second white bag. She looked at me and said her daughter would take care of that too.

 We all knew that the Jewish people were being taken away and that our turn would come soon, as it already had for my aunties and their families. Our house would be sealed and then a lorry would arrive to take everything away.

Towards the end of the war our street was bombed. Nothing was left of the neighborhood.

Did my second white bag survive?

I still have my third new white bag.