Kurt Landmann

Kurt was born on 22 November 1921 in Knurow. a town in Poland 105 km west of Krakow. He was a Zionist and before fleeing to the Netherlands he lived in the Kibbutz in Jessen-Mühle near Sommerfeld (now Lubsko in Poland) to prepare himself for life in Palestine. He came to the Werkdorp in the summer of 1939 to continue his preparation as a farmer. After the Werkdorp was evacuated on 20 March 1941, he was placed with the foster family Oostra in Courbetstraat in Amsterdam. On 14 May 1941, a bomb attack took place on a villa on the Bernard Zweerskade, inhabited by German officers. There were no casualties. A few weeks later, the telephone exchange of the Luftwaffe at Schiphol was blown up, seriously injuring a member of the Wehrmacht. The Germans attributed these attacks to Jews. All in all, reason enough for the Germans to hold a second razzia in Amsterdam and to round up more than 300 young Jewish men. Among them were 61 Werkdorpers. The group was taken to the Durchgangslager Schoorl. They were selected on the basis of age (18-35), health and whether they had four Jewish grandparents. After two weeks Kurt and 56 other workforces in a group of 300 Jews are taken to Mauthausen. There they were put to death by forced labour in stone quarries and/or medical experiments. Kurt was killed on 14 September 1941.

His father Max went on transport from Gleiwitz to Auschwitz on 28 May 1942 and was killed immediately upon arrival. His mother went on the same transport and was killed within a month of arrival.