Born: April 30, 1973 – Deceased: February 10, 2021
Angela Boone studied Cultural Anthropology and Non-Western Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. She completed this study in 2000 and obtained her second Master’s degree at the University of Groningen in 2001: Master of International Humanitarian Action.
As a researcher, Angela was always looking for
truth and justice. In the last ten years of her life (2010-2020) she was intensively involved in a
major investigation into Operation Black Tulip,
an expulsion policy of people of German descent by the Dutch government, which took place in the years immediately after the Second World War. It concerned, among others, many Jews of German descent, who – having just returned from German concentration camps – were once again deported from the Netherlands. This is also known as the ‘After-Holocaust’ or ‘the little Shoah’.
This great crime against humanity was a powerful motivation for Angela to further investigate this period in recent history, using the archives of war documentation in the Netherlands, but in particular archives abroad. Her main goal was helping the relatives. During this research, Angela made remarkable and shocking discoveries that aroused huge international interest and through which many second or third generation people finally understood what had happened in their family history.
With the support of a European Fellowship, which was awarded to her – quite exceptionally – ’on a personal basis’ (i.e. so not from the usual connection with a University), she gave lectures in many European countries, including Germany, England, Luxembourg, Italy and Austria, but she spoke in Sarajevo, Saint Petersburg and Jerusalem as well. Her research has also been published in several countries. As a follow-up to her lecture, which she gave at the invitation of the Simon Wiesenthal-Institut in Vienna, she was interviewed by Austrian radio about her research. In the last year of her life she unfortunately had to decline several invitations within Europe, but also invitations to deliver lectures in the United States and in Australia.
What Angela revealed about her research was only part of her research findings on Operation Black Tulip. She would have liked to conduct further research and bring her findings to the attention of relatives and other interested parties.
Unfortunately she was unable to continue.