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'I'm fragmented, and a surviving remnant': The story of Westerbork prisoner 8331

JL;DR SUMMARY Terrence Petty narrates the profound story of Jacob "Jack" Boas, born in Westerbork, a Nazi transit camp in Holland during WWII. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

AuschwitzHolocaustHolocaust SurvivorTheresienstadtDutch JewsWesterborkJacob BoasNazi Transit CampsSurvivor SyndromeHolocaust Compensation

Places mentioned

Westerbork, Drenthe, Netherlands
"As prisoner 8331 at the Nazis Westerbork transit camp in Holland, Jacob Boas must have witnessed the sorrow and fear of hundreds if not thousands of fellow inmates before they were loaded onto cattle cars and sent to die at Auschwitz."
Auschwitz, Lesser Poland, Poland
"Some 102,000 Dutch Jews transited at Westerbork before being deported to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland."
Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
"My earliest conscious memory is in postwar Amsterdam."
Portland, Oregon, United States
"I met Jack at a second-hand bookstore in Portland, Ore., where we both live."
California, United States
"Jack got a BA in history and political science at McGill University in Montreal, married a McGill student and followed her to the University of California, Riverside, where he earned his PhD in European history."
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
"They moved to Montreal in 1957 because they had no living relatives left in the Netherlands and because of two events portending war: the Suez Canal crisis and the Soviet invasion of Hungary."
Hague, South Holland, Netherlands
"After their arrival at Westerbork, Barend was put to work in the camps tailor workshop, and later at the Nazis headquarters in The Hague."
Canada
"Jack got a BA in history and political science at McGill University in Montreal, married a McGill student and followed her to the University of California, Riverside, where he earned his PhD in European history."
Theresienstadt, Ústecký, Czechia
"In 1944, the family learned they were going to be sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp in occupied Czechoslovakia, which although the Nazis presented it as a model camp served as a feeder camp to Auschwitz."

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Retrieved 2026-04-21 05:31:15 UTC
Curated 2026-04-21 08:30:47 UTC