Overview
- Dutch TV icon Sonja Barend has died at 86, with journalist Frits Barend saying the news left him in tears.
- Frits Barend said they learned in their twenties that they were distant relatives and spent years marking Jewish holidays together, often with her husband Abel and his children.
- He recalled that her father, David Barend, was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 and that Sonja and her brother survived the war.
- Colleagues on NPO Radio 1, including Mariëlle Tweebeke, Herman Meijer, and Coen Verbraak, remembered her as sharp, charming, and unafraid to show her own views.
- They described how her intense focus put guests at ease and led to frank conversations that helped define Dutch talk television.