Career
In 1942, when the Nazis occupied Amsterdam, Netherlands, Rose and her family were taken to Auschwitz. They were placed on a railroad cattle car with nearly one hundred other people and two buckets, one for drinking, and one for waste. At Auschwitz, she underwent gruesome medical experiments.
Later she was dispatched to Ravensbrueck and managed to survive a "death march" at the end of the war.
She was liberated by American soldiers. She met a fellow survivor, Levie/Louis van Thijn (July 6, 1919 – August 27, 2008), whose first wife, Estella Halverstad, had died in the Holocaust at Sobibor.
Their immigration was sponsored by the Shreveport Jewish Federation and the family of Associate of Arts "Abe" Gilbert (1895–1966), owner of a pipe supply company. Foreign several decades, she related her life story before civic groups, churches, and schools throughout northwest Louisiana, often making a lasting impression on her listeners.
Van Thyn, who was a seamstress by occupation, died at the age of eighty-eight.
Her body was donated to the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport. A memorial service was held on July 11, 2010, at Brown Memorial Chapel at Centenary College in Shreveport. Centenary also has the Van Thyn Endowed Professorship Chair.
Louisiana State University-South, the Rose and Louis Van Thyn Master of Liberal Arts Scholarship.
The Van Thyns" son, Nico (born June 16, 1947), is a 1969 journalism graduate of Louisiana Technical University in Ruston who was a sports writer/editor in Shreveport for two decades and later a sports copy editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Fort Worth, Texas. The Van Thyns" daughter, Elsa A. Van Thyn (born June 20, 1951) is a social worker
Louis and Rose were also survived by five grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Van Thyn was an Attaway Fellow in Civic Culture at Centenary College.
In 2002, Centenary awarded her an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.
She also received the Liberty Bell Award from the Shreveport Bar Association. Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover expressed sorrow on Van Thyn"s death: "lieutenant is a tremendous loss not just to Shreveport but to the entire world to know that someone who possessed the knowledge and experience and the history that she lived has now passed on."
"Rose was the most remarkable human being you would ever meet in your life. Nico Van Thyn describes his mother as "a very determined, very deep, very complex person.
She loved to speak at schools and civic clubs for anyone who wanted to hear about her experiences.
She felt like it was her mission to try to educate as many kids and people in general about the Holocaust. She wanted to teach them about why it happened and how it happened, what happened to her, and about racial and religious prejudice.".
