Looking for an obituary for an acquanitence that passed away on May 5, 2006 in Minervaplein (Holland, Europe).

May 6, 2006 10:04 PM

Looking for an obituary for an acquanitence that passed away on May 5, 2006 in Minervaplein (Holland, Europe).

My grandmother's friend from Minervaplein (near Amsterdam) passed away and my grandmother would love to find the obituary. Being as I do not read dutch, I am having difficulty finding it online. Any help in finding this is much appreciated.

Her name is Pol Legerman.

Thank you.

(I wrote Holland, Europe because my searches kept retrieving data from Holland, Michigan, USA)

posted by seinfeld to Human Relations (11 answers total)

I checked three major newspapers online: volkskrant.nl, nrc.nl and telegraaf.nl. They do not seem to publish their obituaries online.
The paper I checked (NRC from May 6th) does not mention her name.

Couldn't you just ask her family to send the obituary. They probably will be touched that an old acquaintance cares that much.
posted by jouke at 10:47 PM on May 6, 2006

Minervaplein is a street in Amsterdam (not a village near Amsterdam). See here).
It is difficult to find an obituary if you have no idea in what newspaper it is published. I agree with Jouke: it may be easiest to just ask the family.
posted by davar at 1:03 AM on May 7, 2006

Response by poster: There are some family politics that are involved, making that not so easy. Please, please, if you can help find it in a day or two, I would appreciate it. Perhaps the obituary has not been published yet?
posted by seinfeld at 6:59 AM on May 7, 2006

Perhaos you should phone the obituary departments at the newspapers?
posted by jamesonandwater at 7:47 AM on May 7, 2006

Perhaps someone here will surprise you, but this might a more apropriate query for Google Answers. AskMeFi is good for picking people's brains and testing their google-fu, but when actual effort is necessary to research an answer, you might want to turn to a forum where you can provide a monetary incentive.
posted by randomstriker at 8:45 AM on May 7, 2006

I think it is likely it will be published today (monday). You could try contacting a mefi member in Amsterdam (see my profile, Amsterdam is 20 miles away from me) to see if they would check their local newspaper.
posted by davar at 1:26 AM on May 8, 2006

As far as I know the newspapers online in the Netherlands do not often have obituaries. Also when you live in a big city and you die of old age, people do not often get an obituary in the printed newspaper unless they were somebody important. I live on a small island and over here we still have them in printed papers. Not online. But when my grandpa and grandma died last year March they did not get one in a printed paper. They lived in Rotterdam.
posted by kudzu at 9:50 AM on May 9, 2006

seinfeld, I stumbled onto this thread a little late. Are you still looking? I checked a few editions of De Telegraaf from around that time I have lying around, to no avail. My local library keeps an archive of recent newspapers - do you want to have a quick check next time I'm there? I'd be happy to.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:54 AM on May 28, 2006

Response by poster: good: I found the death notice via the Center for Dutch Jewry in Israel -- thanks anyway.

I appreciate the offer!
posted by seinfeld at 8:05 AM on May 30, 2006

Sure thing.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:49 AM on May 30, 2006

And well done!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:49 AM on May 30, 2006