HERZBERG, ABEL JACOB

HERZBERG, ABEL JACOB (1893–1989), Dutch author. Herzberg was born in Amsterdam into a Russian immigrant family. A lawyer by profession, he became an enthusiastic Zionist in his youth and made his mark as a powerful speaker and outstanding writer on Jewish affairs. Deported with his family to Bergen-Belsen during the Nazi occupation of Holland, Herzberg recorded his experiences in Amor Fati (1946) and Tweestroomenland ("Country Between Two Streams," 1950). His Kroniek der Jodenvervolging ("Chronicle of the Persecution of the Jews," 1956) is a factual and comprehensive survey of Dutch Jewry during the Hitler era. Herzberg's other works include three plays: Vaderland ("Homeland," 1934), an account of the sufferings of German Jewry; Herodes (1955); and Sauls dood ("Saul's Death," 1959). He also wrote Eichmann in Jeruzalem (1962), a study of the eichmann trial which he attended as a reporter for a Dutch daily, and Brieven aan mijn kleinzoon ("Letters to My Grandson," 1964), a series of childhood recollections. (Henriette Boas)