Jacques Presser

The interviewees (some of them in Jerusalem) are family members, former pupils, former students, colleagues and other relations of the historian and writer. They talk about his youth, background and family ties; his student days; teaching at the Vossius Gymnasium and the Jewish Lyceum in Amsterdam; his marriage to Dé Appel; the war years, including the suicide attempt in May 1940, Dé’s deportation and the period in hiding; his Jewish identity; his second marriage to Bep Hartog; his political views; the issue of his appointment as professor of Newest History at the University of Amsterdam Political Social Faculty at the University of Amsterdam; his publications, including his well-known two-volume Ondergang. The persecution and extermination of Dutch Jewry, 1940-1945, The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1965.