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Nanny Konig - Blitz

Nanny Blitz was a classmate of Anne Frank at the Jewish Lyceum. They met again in Bergen-Belsen.

Person

  • Nanette Konig - Blitz
  • Amsterdam, Nederland April 6, 1929
  • In leven

Nanette (Nannie, Nanny) Blitz was a daughter of Martijn Willem Blitz (1897-1944) from Amsterdam and Helene Victoria Davids (1901-1945), who was born in South Africa.[1] Her parents were married in London in 1926, after which they went to live in Amsterdam. Her father was a deputy bank manager.[2] Nanny had an older brother: Bernard Martijn Blitz (1927-1945),[3] and a younger brother: Willem Blitz (1932-1936), who died at the age of four as a result of blue baby syndrome.[4]

Nanny attended the Willemsparkschool at Pieter Lastmankade 30 in Amsterdam.[4] When she finished primary school in 1941, she was enrolled at the Gemeentelijk Lyceum voor Meisjes (Municipal Lyceum for Girls) at Reinier Vinkeleskade 62, where she was supposed to start in the first year after the summer holidays.[5] However, because Jewish students and teachers were banned from attending regular schools from 1 September 1941, she had to transfer to the Jewish Lyceum. In the schoolyear 1941-'42 she was in class 1L2, which also included Anne Frank. In school year 1942-'43 she was in class 2B.[6] In her diary Anne characterizes her as "a girl whose dreadful tittle-tattle is beyond a joke." There appears to have been some mutual dislike.[7] 

The Blitz family was on the Palestine list. This list included Jews who had been granted a deferral of deportation for various reasons and who had been promised that they would be considered for emigration to Palestine. These included 'Portuguese Jews' (who had made an unsuccessful attempt to prove that they were racially different from East European Jews) and others who had been given special treatment on the grounds of social position or citizenship: Jews with a passport from a neutral state, members of the Jewish Council and the so-called 'Barneveld Group'. In the case of Nanny's father, his inclusion on this list was probably connected to his job at the Amsterdam bank. In September 1943 they were put on a separate Palestine list.[8] Nanny, her parents and brother were arrested on 29 September 1943 during the last razzia in Amsterdam and transported via Amstel Station to Westerbork. They remained there until 15 February 1944, when they were deported to Bergen-Belsen.[9] Here they ended up in the Sternlager, to be exchanged with German prisoners of war and other Germans in Allied captivity. In the end, only a very small number of these prisoners would actually be exchanged.[8]

At the end of November 1944, Nanny's father died of a cerebral haemorrhage in Bergen-Belsen.[10] His family lost their place on the Palestine list as a result. Nanny's brother Bernard was taken to Oranienburg in January, where he died in March 1945. Their mother Helene was deported to the salt mines in Beendorf in January, and was sent on to Eidelstedt on 10 March. There she died a day after arrival. Helmstedt-Beendorf was an Aussenlager of camp Neuengamme. The approximately 2,500 female prisoners worked in this camp for the German Luftwaffe on the underground production of ammunition, aircraft parts and V1 and V2 rockets. The prisoners had to work about 425-465 metres underground.[11] On 10 April 1945, Beendorf was evacuated. The prisoners were put on a train to Hamburg. Female prisoners arrived in Hamburg after a long and terrible train journey through Germany (a large number of women died of hunger and thirst), from where they were spread out among various sub-camps. Nanny's mother ended up in the Eidelstedt sub-camp, where she died a day after arrival. Almost all of the prisoners who were still alive at the time managed to board a Red Cross train on 1 May that travelled from Hamburg via Denmark to Sweden.[12]

Nanny remained in Bergen-Belsen and was transferred from the Sternlager to the women's camp on 5 December 1944, where she saw Anne and Margot again. Although she was in a different block, she met Anne and Margot a number of times. Margot, in particular, was already seriously weakened by then.

Nanette Blitz recalled:

"I don't think I saw Margot standing up. She was lying there. I hugged Anne, but I don't remember Margot standing, she was already completely weakened. And everything had shrunk, brains, stomachs, everything, they were, she was all... and I hardly ever spoke to her. She was already half gone, completely weakened... But Anne I did talk to, several times, and I think every time she came, Margot was lying there in a shed, she wasn't so well anymore."[13]

She also said that she had seen Anne and Margot shortly before they died:

"When I found Anne and Margot in Camp 8, that was the original Camp 8, which was then a women's camp, [...] they were both skeletons and I, I know about Anne that she was wrapped in a blanket. Margot I can't remember if she was also wrapped in a blanket, but she was also very weak, completely, well, consumed so to speak. And maybe she was wrapped in a blanket too, the clothes were impossible to wear because they were full of lice."[13]

Nanette Blitz survived Bergen-Belsen and first returned to the Netherlands. In October Otto Frank heard from Hanneli Goslar that Nanny had seen Anne and Margot in Bergen-Belsen. He wrote her a letter asking if she could tell him more about his daughters. On 31 October 1945, from the Provincial Hospital in Santpoort, she gave him a brief report. She wrote that she had seen Anne and Margot in January 1945 in the Schonungsblock — the infirmary block: "Then there was a big move after which I did not speak to them anymore, but I know from the girl here that someone spoke to them in February."[14]

Shortly after her letter, Nanny received a visit from Otto Frank at the Provincial Hospital in Santpoort, where she told him more about his daughters. Annelore Daniel, 'the girl' Nanny mentioned, was also in the hospital at the time and she added to Nanny's story.[15]

After the war Nanny Blitz went to England, where she met her future husband, John Konig. In 1953 they married and emigrated to Brazil.[16] Nanny Blitz regularly gives lectures there about the Holocaust.[17] In 2015 she published her memoirs in Portuguese.[18] The English translation appeared in 2018.[19]

Source personal data.[1] Address: Van Baerlestraat 58 huis, Amsterdam.[1]

Footnotes

  1. a, b, c Stadsarchief Amsterdam (SAA), Dienst Bevolkingsregister, Archiefkaarten (toegangsnummer 30238): Archiefkaarten Martijn Willem Blitz en Helene Victoria Davids.
  2. ^ Arolsen Archives, International Center on Nazi Persecution, Bad Arolsen, Joodsche Raad Cartotheek: DocID: 130261456 (Martijn W BLITZ).
  3. ^ SAA, Dienst Bevolkingsregister, Archiefkaarten (toegangsnummer 30238): Archiefkaart Bernard Martijn Blitz.
  4. a, b Anne Frank Stichting (AFS), Getuigenarchief: Interview Nanette Konig-Blitz, 2 augustus 2012.
  5. ^ SAA, Archief van de Secretarie, Afdeling Onderwijs (toegang: 5191), inv. nr. 7410, volgnr. 2802: Opgave van het Gemeentelijk Lyceum voor Meisjes, 16 juli 1941, Ingekomen lijsten van middelbare scholen met opgave van aanwezige Joodse leerlingen.
  6. ^ NIOD Instituut voor Oorlogs-, Holocaust en Genocidestudies, Amsterdam, Archief 181e (W.S.H. Elte), inv. nr. 2f: Absentenregister klas 1LII Joods Lyceum, 1 maart – 17 juli 1942; Dienke Hondius, Absent: herinneringen aan het Joods Lyceum Amsterdam 1941-1943, Amsterdam: Vassallucci, 2001, p. 269-270; Wikipedia: Klas van Anne Frank.
  7. ^ Anne Frank, Diary Version A, 15 June 1942, in: The Collected Works, transl. from the Dutch by Susan Massotty, London [etc.]: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019.
  8. a, b Zie hiervoor o.a. Katja Happe, Veel valse hoop. De Jodenvervolging in Nederland 1940-1945, Amsterdam: Atlas Contact, 2018, p. 281-284; Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL. Een geschiedenis van de naziconcentratiekampen, Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2015, p. 469-472.
  9. ^ Arolsen Archives, Joodsche Raad Cartotheek: DocID: 130261456 (Martijn W BLITZ); DocID: 130261303 (Helena V BLITZ DAVIDS); DocID: 130261179 (Bernard M BLITZ); DocID: 130261494 (Nanette BLITZ).
  10. ^ CBG|Centrum voor familiegeschiedenis, Collectie Duitse Overlijdensakten: Overlijdensakte Martijn Willem Blitz.
  11. ^ KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme: Helmstedt-Beendorf (Frauen).
  12. ^ KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme: Helmstedt-Beendorf (Frauen); Joods Monument: Helene Victoria Blitz-Davids.
  13. a, b AFS, Getuigenarchief: Interview Nanette Konig-Blitz, 2 augustus 2012. Zie ook: Bas von Benda-Beckmann, Na het Achterhuis. Anne Frank en de andere onderduikers in de kampen, Amsterdam: Boom, 2020, p. 48, 54, 242-243, 255,257, 267, 313.
  14. ^ AFS, Getuigenarchief, Blitz, Nanette: brief Nanette Blitz aan Otto Frank, 31 oktober 1945 (digitale kopie, origineel bij Anne Frank-Fonds, Bazel).
  15. ^ Zie ook: Von Benda-Beckmann, Na het Achterhuis, p. 267.
  16. ^ Melissa Müller, Mit dir steht die Welt nicht still: eine Liebe nach dem Holocaust, Zürich: Diogenes Verlag, 2025.
  17. ^ Wikipedia: Nanette Blitz Konig.
  18. ^ Nanette Konig-Blitz, Eu sobrevivi ao holocausto : o comovente relato de uma das ultimas amigas vivas de Anne Frank, São Paulo: Universo dos Livores, 2015.
  19. ^ Nanette Blitz-Konig, Holocaust memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen survivor and classamate of Anne Frank, Amsterdam: Amsterdam Publishers, 2018. Nanny Blitz is één van de vriendinnen van Anne Frank die wordt geportretteerd in: Janny van der Molen, Vergeet mij niet. Anne Franks vrienden en vriendinnen, Amsterdam: Ploegsma, 2022.

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