Simon Hammelburg


Simon Hammelburg is a Dutch entertainer, songwriter, journalist, and Holocaust educator.

Media career

During the 1970s he e was a news anchor and a travelling journalist for AVRO radio and television. In the early 1980s he became the U.S. Bureau Chief for Dutch and Belgium radio and TV in New York and for several newspapers and weeklies.
Prior to the first Gulf War he produced the video Shalom from Holland with director Ralph Inbar and film maker Floris Sijbesma, as a token of solidarity to the Israeli people who were threatened by missiles fired from Iraq. Among the performing singers and musicians were George Baker, Joe Bourne, Adèle Bloemendaal, Ruud Bos, Marco Borsato, Ted de Braak, Jaap Dekker, Lex Goudsmit, Donald Jones, Caroline Kaart, Ben Cramer, Lenny Kuhr, Thijs van Leer, Donna Lynton, Maggie MacNeal, Harry Sacksioni and Daniël Wayenberg. Hammelburg co-wrote the song with Ron Klipstein. With Inbar and Sijbesma, he received an award by the Knesset.
Hammelburg co-authored Mijn Jodendom and wrote Kaddisj voor Daisy and Broken on the inside - The war never ended, based on 1200 interviews with Holocaust survivors and their children, providing insights into the traumas of the first and post-war generations of Holocaust victims. The interviews were made during a campaign to help American Jews and other individuals file claims for property they lost during the nazi era in what was to become East Germany.