Simon Bierman was a son of Levie Bierman and Saa Italiaander and was born in Amsterdam on 4 November 1903. His mother Sara was a sister of Rebecca Italiaander, who was married to Levie Velleman. Simon’s mother Sara had with his father Levie Bierman 10 children, but at the birth of the 10th child, his mother died in childbirth the next day on 9 July 1910. His father Levie Bierman remarried then in 1911 Heintje Jas and Simon afterwards then had four more half-siblings.
Simon Bierman married his cousin 1st degree Henriette Velleman in Amsterdam on 19 June 1929. She was a daughter of Levie Velleman and Rebecca Italiaander but they had no children together. Before Simon was wed, he lived already at Reitzstraat 1 in Amsterdam-East and Henriette then lived at Nieuwe Meerdijk 41 in Haarlemmermeer. After their wedding, the moved into a house in the Christiaan de Wetstraat 2 in Amsterdam-East on 23 November 1929, moved 25 September 1931 to President Brandstraat 11 and per 17 Setpember 1934 to Blasiusstraat 53.
On 25 January 1929, Simon Bierman lived already independent in the Reitzstraat and he then was working as a tailor by profession. According to data from the City Archive of Amsterdam, Henriette Velleman then was a “pharmacist” (apotheekster). Up from 1934, Simon Bierman and Henriette Velleman runned a fuel trade. But during the months in spring and summer, Simon peddled ice cream in Amsterdam-East (later in West too), for which he had a vendor-permit. During the other months, he peddled his fuels.
It also appeared from the City Archive of Amsterdam, that Simon Bierman on 25 September 1942 was working as a ditcher and/or earth digger, presumably in one of the Jewish labor camps in the Northern Netherlands, however it is unkown where he has been. His Jewish Council registration card shows that he was exempted and/or set back (from the “Arbeitseinsatz” – provision of additional work in Germany) according to list 8/2b but it is unknown too when that exemption would have come into effect.
After the Germans ordered the liquidation of all Jewish labor camps on 3 October 1942, Simon Bierman arrived somewhere between 3 and 5 October in Westerbork and ended up in barrack 61. Again he requested exemption from deportation in connection to his previously granted postponement, but this time it was not granted to him and in the end, Simon Bierman has been put on transport to Auschwitz on 2 November 1942.
The transport of 2 November 1942 was a transport with 954 deportees in total, where during a stopover in Kozel, located ±80 km west from Auschwitz, 260 boys and men between 15 and 50 years of age were forced to leave the train, to be subsequently deployed as forced labourers in the surrounding labor camps in Upper Silesia. The remaining deportees in the train were transported onwards to Auschwitz to be murdered there upon arrival.
Where Simon Bierman eventually ended up is unknown, nor the exact date and under what conditions he lost his life. The Dutch Authorities after the war have established – based on testimonials of survivors, researches and other information, that Simon Bierman no longer could be alive after 31 March 1943. Therefore the Ministry of Justice commissioned the Municipality of Amsterdam to draw up a certificate of death for Simon Bierman, in which has been established that he has died (somewhere) in Mid-Europe on 31 March 1943.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Levie Bierman and Simon Bierman, archive cards of Simon Bierman and Henriette Velleman, Amsterdam vendor permits for Simon Bierman; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Simon Bierman and Henriette Bierman-Velleman; the wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and the death certificate for Simon Bierman, made out in Amsterdam dated 1 February 1952, nr. 327 from the A-register 93-folio 56verso.