At the end of July 1942, Lydia Riezouw, then eighteen years old, looked out of the window of her upper-storey apartment on Plantage Kerklaan and took a photo of her friend from secondary school, Gretha (Greetje) Velleman, in the courtyard behind the Hollandsche Schouwburg.

Riezouw, who was not Jewish, took a total of five photographs from her upper-floor home and from her downstairs neighbours’ garden. As well as a photo of the high side-wall of the theatre, showing people in the narrow alleyway, reaching over the fences to the neighbouring gardens, the other four photos are of the courtyard where Gretha was standing. In one photograph, Gretha Velleman, a somewhat old-looking girl, is waving at the photographer.

Her name, along with those of 648 others, appears in a transport list for Westerbork dated 29 July 1942. Two days later, Gretha Velleman was put on a transport bound for the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz in occupied Poland. After the war, the Dutch Red Cross recorded Gretha Velleman's date of death as 30 September 1942. It is not known exactly when she was killed.

In addition to the photos of Lydia Riezouw, we know of an additional three photographs of the Hollandsche Schouwburg dating from this period of deportation: two are of the façade, and also show a guard, and one is of the room where the staff of the Jewish Council registered new arrivals. Although more than 46,000 people stayed there in the sixteen months that the theatre functioned as a site of deportation, we nevertheless know of just eight photos of the place.

Whilst there are few pictures, there are many stories: the testimonies of survivors, bystanders, escaped detainees, and members of the resistance.