The tragic story of World War II victims Lex and Edo Hornemann from Eindhoven will be commemorated by pupils of the Van Maerlantlyceum on Wednesday 20 April.
Together with Lout Donders and Anne-Marie van Oosteren the pupils made a documentary; ‘De meedogenloze moord op Edo en Lexje Hornemann’ (‘The ruthless murder of Edo and Lexje Hornemann’).
The documentary focuses on the tragic lives of the Hornemann brothers and family. Father Hornemann was the first to be taken to camp Vught, mother and their sons followed. In another camp, father and mother die of exhaustion and typhus, the boys fall into the hands of the Nazi scientist Josef Mengele, better known as the Engel des Doods (angel of death). In the camp, the brothers were subjected to tests involving injections of TB cells. After the war, the Germans tried to cover up the traces of Mengele’s experiments. The brothers are taken to an empty school on the outskirts of Hamburg and hanged. Lex and Edo were then twelve and eight years old.
Important to remember
“Atrocities are unfortunately not only of the past but also occur in the present and, hopefully much less so, in the future. We would like to use the history of the Hornemann brothers as an opportunity to reflect on the developments of today and the dangers of our time and future”, Rector Emmeken van der Heijden says.
Commemoration
Students of the third grade will commemorate the Hornemann brothers on Wednesday, 20 April. Wim van de Donk, chairman of the National Committee 4 and 5 May, and documentary maker Lout Donders, among others, will be present. Also, ‘De meedogenloze moord op Edo en Lexje Hornemann’ movie will be shown for the first time.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
