Ode to Ted Musaph | Remembering as a force from which a person can act for the better

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Dear Ted,

In 1987, you chose for the Jewish Museum, this text from the Talmud, precipitation of ancient Jewish tradition. It could also be the motto for your own life. Born in 1927, no one could have guessed how radically your existence too would be changed by the persecution of Jews between 1940-45. But independence and courage you had even then. You didn't want to be deported and at 15, you decided to stay behind alone in Utrecht and let your parents with your brother and sister go away, to Westerbork. However, the city becoming hostile made it impossible to continue hiding, you were caught and taken to the Hollandsche Schouwburg. There, too, you managed to escape with help. And again, things got too tough. You eventually voluntarily joined your parents, brother and sister, in Westerbork. In January 1944, you were deported to Bergen Belsen concentration camp. Your father did not survive the camp.

Back in Holland, you were found to have tuberculosis and had to be admitted to a sanatorium. Those two years, you sometimes said, were the most terrible time of your life. Outside the sick room, life had resumed its course and you were 18 years old, powerless and helpless in bed. You had been denied the 'do' from the spell in the Talmud, you yearned for life, now that you had survived the Shoah, the catastrophic destruction.

Healed in 1948, the 'doing' had arrived. You became a medical analyst, began working for Jewish life in the Netherlands and the still young Israel. You married psychiatrist Herman Musaph in 1958 and became his assistant. But also student when you decided to study Semitic languages. You wrote a widely used introductory survey of rabbinic literature up to the Middle Ages in 1973. You were a Hebrew teacher at the Vossius Gymnasium for several years and for a long time interpreter-translator Hebrew at
the District Court.

In 1967, you were asked to serve as a board member for the small then Jewish Historical Museum in the Waag building, hosted by the Amsterdam Museum located in that building. The board consisted of older men, survivors like yourself, but they had no hope for the future. The annihilation of two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population had destroyed their vitality. The museum almost would have been closed down. Now you are honorary chairman for life.

Summer 1969, you asked if I wanted to come work for the museum. And so we became the first women's team in the men's world of museums, politics and civil service of city and country, you as chairman and fundraiser, me from 1976 as director and construction woman. For nearly 30 years, we worked closely together. You later also became a member of the National 4 and 5 May Committee and a board member of the Anne Frank House. With a travelling exhibition about Anne Frank, you went around the world to share your experiences of the persecution years, also with schoolchildren in Germany.

You have no children, but your view of remembrance as a force from which a person can act for the better moves and touches more than 100,000 people every year.

Thanks strong brave Ted, on their behalf.

Judith