Nanette Blitz Konig

Nanette Konig-Blitz (born 1929) is a Bergen-Belsen concentration camp survivor and former classmate of Anne Frank. She has lived in São Paulo, Brazil since 1953.[1][2] In 2015, she published, in Brazil, a book about being a Belsen survivor called Eu Sobrevivi ao Holocausto.[3] On Holocaust Memorial Day 26 January 2018, Nanette published her book in English with the title Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor & Classmate of Anne Frank[4]

Nanette was born on 6th April, 1929 in Amsterdam, Holland, daughter of Martijn Willem Blitz and Helene Victoria Davids.[5] She had an older brother, Bernard Martijn, born in 1927, and a younger brother, Willem, born in 1932 with a “blue baby” heart defect and died in 1936. The family was of Jewish origin and her father worked for the Amsterdamsche Bank. Holland was occupied in May 1940 by the Nazis who began to persecute the Jews. At the beginning of 1941, Jewish students were obliged to go to Jewish schools and it was then that Nanette became a classmate of Anne Frank. [6]

The Blitz Family was arrested and taken to the transition camp of Westerbork. February 15, 1944 they are deported to Bergen Belsen concentration camp.[7]

At the end of November, 1944 Nanette's father dies. At the beginning of December, Nanette's brother and mother are deported from Bergen Belsen and she remains alone. Her brother dies in the concentration camp of Oranienburg and her mother is deported to Beendorf salt mines as a slave labourer and dies in April, 1945 in a train that was on the way to Sweden.

In January, 1945 Nanette is transferred to a different part of Bergen Belsen known as the small women’s camp. From there she sees Anne Frank in the large women’s camp through the barbed wired fence. These two camps become one section and it is then that Nanette gets together with Anne and her sister Margot.[8]

Nanette survives Bergen-Belsen and is rescued by the British Major Leonard Berney. After the war, she spends three years hospitalized with typhus which killed Anne Frank. During this period, Anne's father comes to visit and asks about his daughters. Later, Otto Frank gives Nanette the diary written by his daughter Anne “Het Achterhuis” (The Secret Annex). After Nanette recovers, she goes to live in England where she meets her husband, John Konig of Hungarian origin. In 1953, they marry and move to Brazil. Nanette gives lectures about the Holocaust and her life. In 2015 she publishes a book “Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor - Classmate of Anne Frank" where she gives a detailed account of her experiences during World War II.

References

  1. ↑ Draper, Lucy (2017-04-15). "A SOLDIER AND A SURVIVOR REMEMBER BERGEN-BELSEN". Newsweek. Retrieved 2017-12-17.
  2. ↑ "Liberating Belsen Concentration Camp - A Personal Account by (former) Lt-Colonel Leonard Berney", page i., 2015 ISBN 978-1511541701
  3. ↑ "Eu Sobrevivi ao Holocausto", Nanette Blitz Konig, Universo dos Livros (2015), ISBN 978-8579308765
  4. ↑ "Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor & Classmate of Anne Frank", Nanette Blitz Konig, Amsterdam Publishers (2018), ISBN 978-9492371614
  5. ↑ “O Estado de São Paulo - Memorias de adolesencia”, 24 July 2011 by Monica Manis and Carol Pires
  6. ↑ “Absent”, Denke Hondius 2001, page 169, ISBN 9789050003223
  7. ↑ “Book of Remembrance”, Prisoners in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Vo.1 page 111: Foundation for Memorials in Lower Saxony, Bergen Belsen Memorial, April 2005
  8. ↑ “O Estado de São Paulo - Memorias de adolesencia”, 24 July 2011 by Monica Manis and Carol Pires
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