Ronald Waterman

Prepared by the Witnesses of War team

Ronald Waterman was born on 28 September 1934 in Delft, the Netherlands, the youngest of four children in a Jewish family. His father was a professor at Delft’s technical university. Following the German invasion in May 1940, persecution gradually dismantled their lives: his father lost his position, Ronald was excluded from school, and the family was forced to wear yellow stars and surrender its possessions.

On 31 March 1943, the family was interned at De Schaffelaar in Barneveld, where prominent Dutch Jews and their relatives received temporary protection from deportation. There, Ronald helped an imprisoned entomologist collect insects, nurturing an interest in science. That protection ended on 29 September 1943, the day after his ninth birthday, when they were transferred to Westerbork transit camp. He witnessed the weekly departure of deportation trains and became seriously ill during his imprisonment.

On 4 September 1944, Ronald and his family were deported to Theresienstadt (Terezín), arriving two days later. He later recalled being forced to help pass urns containing prisoners’ ashes towards the Ohře River, where the Nazis ordered their contents discarded. In the war’s final weeks, he watched transports arrive carrying starving and dying prisoners evacuated from other camps.

All six members of the immediate family survived, although his two brothers contracted typhus. Following liberation in May 1945, they returned to the Netherlands, finding their home occupied by others. Ronald subsequently built an international career in coastal and environmental engineering and served for 33 years in South Holland’s provincial council.