Dutch Contractor Finds Hidden Holocaust Message Scrawled On Door
Image by Wiki Commons
When contractor Jelle Kapitein set to work on a client’s bathroom door, he had no idea what lay behind the wooden panels. Written on the white panel in thin black lettering was a message dated April 23, 1942, reported
It appears the message was from a Jewish couple, written while hiding in the house during the Holocaust.
In Dutch, the message read: “Look on the roof and find my last personal things and try after the war to find family of ours/ Give them my things and you will become something/ Oh God of Israel, have mercy on your humiliated brothers/ Signed, Levie Sajet born at 1-8-1881 born in Nijmegen and his housewife Ester Zilberstein born at Stettin on the 28-7-1899.”
Kapitein was working on a home in Bilthoven, a village in the Netherlands. He told ABC news, “The tone of the text – so sad, so hopeless. [It] made a great impression on us.”
Kapitein also said that he has tried to reach out to relatives of the couple by searching through many archives, but so far no luck.
The Yad Vashem Museum in the Netherlands has contacted him to try to authenticate the door. “Yad Vashem would be pleased to receive the door if Mr. Kapitein wishes to donate it to our collection, as it bears witness to the fate of the Dutch Jews during the Holocaust.”
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
