Jack, commemorating Rebecca Groen Soberski.

Rebecca Groen Soberski was my maternal grandfather’s grandmother. Born to a Jewish family in Amsterdam in August 1871. She was murdered in Auschwitz in September 1942.

Unfortunately, we know very little else about Rebecca. We have scraps of information, which include an anecdote, several dates and locations, and details of family members, including the professional career of her husband, Leendert Groen.

Rebecca was one of eight children and got married when she was 23. She had three children and several grandchildren. She and Leendert moved several times, eventually settling back in Amsterdam in 1936, where Leendert died in April.

Rebecca spent the last few years of her life a widow, staying in Amsterdam, but she had some family nearby, both in the city and the coastal town of Haarlem, where my grandfather grew up.

The absence of information about Rebecca underlines the theme of my installation. I wish to return a semblance of life, colour, experience, to her memory. Hopefully, by the end of the exhibition’s run, we have returned some freedom, or agency, to her memory. We can try and shift her memory from that of a faceless victim, to a human being who had 71 years of life.

Part of this means we have filled a book with new connections, as visitors to the exhibition are encouraged to write to Rebecca.

Jack.