Emma van der Sluis was born into a Jewish family in the quiet town of Veghel, in the southern Netherlands. The daughter of Belia van der Sluis, she grew up alongside her sisters Henriëtte and Elizabeth in what was, for a time, a peaceful and ordinary environment. The van der Sluis family was part of a small but tight-knit Jewish community, deeply rooted in Dutch culture and daily life. Emma’s early years were likely filled with the warmth of family, community traditions, and the hopes and dreams shared by many young children in pre-war Europe.
However, the rise of Nazi Germany and the outbreak of World War II cast a long and dark shadow over the lives of Dutch Jews. After the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940, the situation for Jewish families like the van der Sluises deteriorated rapidly. Systematic restrictions were placed on Jews: they were banned from public life, had to register with authorities, and eventually were forced to wear the yellow Star of David. Schools, businesses, and even places of worship were shut down or segregated. Emma, still a young girl, witnessed the rapid erosion of her childhood innocence under a regime of growing fear and exclusion.
By 1942, the Nazi regime intensified its plans to exterminate the Jewish population through the implementation of the “Final Solution.” This involved the mass deportation of Jews to concentration and extermination camps in occupied Poland. In October of that year, Emma, her mother Belia, and her sisters Henriëtte and Elizabeth were rounded up as part of one of these deportation actions. Like many other Dutch Jews, they were likely transported from the Westerbork transit camp, which served as the main departure point for trains heading east to Auschwitz.
The journey to Auschwitz was harrowing, taking several days in overcrowded cattle cars with little food or water. Families were packed together in unsanitary and dehumanizing conditions, with no idea of what awaited them. Upon arrival at Auschwitz, prisoners were subjected to a brutal selection process by Nazi doctors and SS officers. Those deemed fit for labor were separated from those considered unfit, including young children, the elderly, and mothers with young children. Emma, being a child, and her family members were likely sent immediately to the gas chambers.
Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi extermination camps, where over a million people were murdered, the vast majority of them Jews. The gas chambers were disguised as shower rooms, part of the Nazis’ efforts to deceive and manage the massive scale of the genocide. Victims were herded inside, locked in, and then gassed with Zyklon B. It is believed that Emma, her mother, and her sisters were killed shortly after their arrival, most likely within hours, in this horrific manner. They became part of the staggering number of innocent lives extinguished in the Holocaust.
The story of Emma van der Sluis and her family is one among countless others, yet each individual narrative holds a profound and irreplaceable value. Emma was not just a statistic or a name on a list—she was a daughter, a sister, a human being with a life that could have been full of promise. Her memory, along with that of her family, lives on as a testament to the resilience of remembrance and the importance of acknowledging the human cost of hatred and intolerance.
The loss of Emma and her family represents the shattering of an entire world—generations never born, lives never lived, dreams never realized. Holocaust memorials, museums, and educational initiatives strive to ensure that the names and stories of victims are not lost to history. In recent years, photographs, documents, and personal testimonies have helped reconstruct these personal histories, offering a glimpse into the lives that were so brutally cut short.
Today, remembering Emma van der Sluis is an act of defiance against forgetting. It is a call to recognize the dangers of prejudice and unchecked authoritarianism. By telling her story, we honor her life and the lives of millions like hers, and we reaffirm our commitment to never let such atrocities happen again. Emma’s name, her photo with her sisters, and the tragic truth of her fate remain etched into the collective memory of humanity—reminders of the past, warnings for the future.
