Folkingestraat’s painful past
Echoes of a community
Door Lukas Wrangel
By Lukas Wrangel
Lukas Wrangel
It’s such a cheerful street. Cyclists weave swiftly between the pedestrians. A man steps out of the party shop where I once bought that ridiculous orange hat for King’s Day. I’ve loved Folkingestraat ever since I swapped Lübeck for Groningen eight months ago.
Still, I never gave it much thought—until I saw that documentary about Groningen, in which a German reporter stops in front of a door I must have passed dozens of times. In the scene, a woman explains that the door symbolises the history of the Jewish community in Groningen.
And suddenly I realised: this part of town, now filled with charming hipster shops, delicatessens and restaurants, was once the Jewish quarter of the city. But of the 2,800 Jews who once lived here, only 120 survived the war.
Hidden stories
Now that I know, I can’t un-know. Every time I walk down this street, I wonder what other hidden stories it holds. Fortunately, there is someone who knows all about the Jewish history of Groningen, and of this street in particular. Assistant professor of history Stefan van der Poel has been researching it for years and is happy to show me the traces of the past that still remain.
What if the people I see every day were all taken away?
We’ve barely entered the street, starting from Vismarkt, when Van der Poel stops in his tracks. ‘Do you see this?’ he asks, pointing to a wall at Folkingestraat 9 that I’ve somehow never noticed before. Some of the bricks have been removed to form the word weggehaald. ‘It means “taken away”, and it commemorates the Jews who were taken from their homes during the deportations of 1942 and 1943’, he explains.
Jews and non-Jews once lived here side by side, he says, but the deportations changed the street profoundly, leaving almost all the houses empty.
I try to imagine it: the silence, the deserted street after the war. What if the people I see every day—my classmates, my neighbours—were all taken away? It feels strange, mourning people I’ve never met.
Stolpersteine
There’s more, Van der Poel points out. Beneath my feet, I notice bronze lunar shapes embedded in the pavement. They depict the lunar cycle in eleven phases but also form the shape of an eye when viewed together. Again, it’s a reference to the history of this place. The Hebrew word for ‘moon’ also means ‘eye’, and the number eleven is significant in Hebrew, too, where numbers are often linked with words.
And then there are the Stolpersteine, or stumbling stones. In front of no fewer than eight houses, small brass plates have been placed in the pavement to mark where Jewish families once lived. They commemorate the names of twenty-four people who were deported and later died in concentration camps. One stone, at Folkingestraat 41, lists nine names.
A family of nine. I had known about the Stolpersteine, but seeing them here and now fills me with a sadness that’s difficult to articulate. It hits differently when the names are connected to a real story.
Elderly centre
Even more confronting is a site about fifty metres away from Folkingestraat, at Schoolholm 26. I was already moved by what I’d seen in Folkingestraat, but here there are dozens of plaques—too many to count at a glance.
It hits differently when the names are connected to a real story
‘This used to be the Beth Zekenim elderly centre’, Van der Poel explains. ‘During the first deportation, it was only the men who were taken. The second targeted women and children. The final deportation removed the elderly who remained here. I spoke to the man who lived in the house next door and he told me how the Nazis came with trucks during the night and took them away.’
There’s something in Van der Poel’s tone—quiet, measured—that makes it feel as though we’re not just walking down a street, but through memory. And I think it’s because he’s spoken with so many people from this neighbourhood. It feels like he’s telling their story, and I’m not just learning history—I’m inside it.
Survivor
We return to Folkingestraat and stop next to the North African grocery shop Le Souk, where I sometimes buy olives and spices. It’s a modest building, one I wouldn’t have thought remarkable.
But again, its history is what makes it special. ‘This is where Elie Aron Cohen used to live’, Van der Poel tells me. And Cohen is someone who survived the war. ‘He was sent to transit camp Westerbork and later to Auschwitz. But because he was a medical student, the Nazis put him to work. While 78 percent of Dutch Jews were killed during the war, 60 percent of medical doctors survived.’ Van der Poel published a biography of Cohen last year, titled Tussen Aduard en Auschwitz—Between Aduard and Auschwitz.
I visited Auschwitz on a school trip a few years ago and saw the horrors that people endured there. It felt like a place of no return. I remember how heavy that day was—walking through the camp, seeing the piles of shoes, the suitcases, the photographs. Standing now in front of the former home of Elie Aron Cohen, that feeling returns.
Synagogue
We continue on. Across from the party shop, next to the antiquarian bookshop’s front door, there’s a mosaic of a horse’s hindquarters. I’d never known why it was there, but now I learn that a Jewish horse butcher once lived on that spot. ‘Horse meat isn’t kosher’, Van der Poel notes, ‘but the Jewish community here was very diverse. Many people didn’t go to synagogue regularly. Some married non-Jews, some opened non-kosher businesses that were frequented by everyone.’
I remember how heavy that day was—seeing the piles of shoes, the suitcases
There’s also the synagogue, which at first seems oddly like a typical church. When we enter, Van der Poel explains why: ‘It was designed by a Christian architect who had only ever built churches. So the layout inside is shaped like a cross.’
The small Jewish community that remained after the war could no longer afford to maintain the synagogue, and in 1952 they were forced to sell it. The sacred space became a launderette.
When that business closed in 1973, demolition loomed. ‘Fortunately, a small group—mostly non-Jews—fought to save the building. And so today, it serves partly as a place of worship and partly as a cultural venue.’
Remembering
Finally, we arrive at the door I had seen in the documentary. It’s located at the far end of the street, near Gedempte Zuiderdiep. The door has no handle, so there is no way to open it. Even the window beside it has been bricked up. ‘The history of Folkingestraat is hidden behind closed doors’, says Van der Poel, explaining the symbolism.
Still, he believes we must remember. ‘We are all deeply connected, and history plays a crucial role in our lives. I believe that as a citizen of any place, you should know its history.’
Only now do I fully understand. This street—once vibrant, then devastated by Nazi occupation and the loss of its people—has, in the end, come back to life.