Bloeme’s Raadsel (Dutch titles) is a TV documentary that tells the thought-provoking story of Bloeme Evers-Emden (5 July 1926 – 18 July 2016), trying to decipher what made her the amazing woman she was. A holocaust survivor of Auschwitz, Bloeme was and stayed a humanist.

Having children and raising them as Jews, was her resolve after the inhuman experiences she had to endure.

Born and raised as a secular person in a communist family, she came to lead a strict religious life, since her children insisted on it. Was it out of ‘honour thy children?’ or was it her and her husbands’ way of honouring Life and the life they brought to this shuttered world?

Bloeme led a constant struggle for women’s rights within the orthodox community, while absurdly, all these rights were available for women in the liberal community. Still, she was loyal to the tiny orthodox synagogue she helped creating, Sjoel West; kept all the rules, including those she fought to change.

Bloeme Evers-Emden was to me a woman full of riddles. For many years, I joined her Jewish studies weekly lessons in her living-room. I also interviewed her in several of my TV documentaries. With all the contradictions, which she represented to me, I appreciated her, even loved her, but try as I may, her riddle is still unsolved.