Herman Cohen was a son of Mozes Cohen and Sara Brander. He was born in Amsterdam on 31 July 1897 and married there at the age of 39 on 12 August 1936 the 27-year old Rijntje van Leeuwen, a daughter of Alexander van Leeuwen and Veronica Pos. Rijntje was born in Den Haag on 15 March 1909 and she worked as a day maid in Arnhem, where she then lived at the Amsterdamscheweg 15.
Herman and Rijntje moved into a house in the Lepelstraat 69 in Amsterdam after they were wed. There, on 13 July 1937 their first born son was born. After the birth of Mozes, the family moved to Ruyschstraat 74, where on 17 April 1939 their 2nd son Alexander was born.
Herman was “collector”, and per 30 March 1942 he was collector at the Treasury of the N.I.H.S. (Netherlands Israëlitic Main Synagogue) at the Houtmarkt (prior to the war named Jonas Daniel Meijerplein). The Jewish Council did not provide him with an official “Sperre” but on 29 July 1942 they issued him a so-called “deferment”, which meant that for the time being Herman, his wife and children would not yet be deported.
Notes from the registration cards of the Jewish Council show, that the Herman Cohen family was sent to concentration camp Vught on 16 January 1943. In 1942 the construction of “Concentration Camp Herzogenbusch” as Camp Vught officially was named, has started in 1942. When the first starving and exhausted prisoners arrived from Amersfoort in January 1943, the camp was not yet finished. The prisoners were “allowed to finish the construction themselves”. The miserable circumstances cost the lives of several hundred people in the first months. (Source: website Traces of War/Camp Vught)
Rijntje van Leeuwen and her two young children Mozes and Alexander Cohen, were deported on 7 June 1943 with the so-called “children transport” from Vught to Westerbork and the next day, on 8 June 1943 transported to Sobibor. On arrival there on 11 June they all were immediately killed in the gas chambers there.
Herman Cohen however, was only one month later sent from Vught to Westerbork, where he arrived on 3 July 1943 and had to stay in barrack 55. Three days later, on 6 July he was deported to Sobibor and on arrival there on 9 July 1943, Herman Cohen was killed too in the gas chambers there immediately.
Sources include the Municipal Archive of Den Haag, family registration card of Alexander van Leeuwen; the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card and archive card of Herman Cohen; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Herman Cohen, Rijntje Cohen-van Leeuwen, Mozes Cohen and Alexander Cohen and website ITS Arolson, Camp card of Vught for Herman Cohen, Rijntje Cohen-van Leeuwen, Mozes Cohen and Alexander Cohen.