Heintje Michel was the second of eleven children of Friedrich Michel and Lena Reiwit. She was born in Amsterdam on 4 January 1886 and married there on 8 September 1909 Joseph Dobrowitsky, a tailor by profession. Joseph was born in Kiev in what was then Russia (present-day Ukraine) on 17 January 1882 as a son of the deceased parents Jechiel Dobrowitsky and Pessa Rosenblatt.
Joseph Dobrowitsky had already come to Amsterdam from Kiev on November 19, 1905, where he first lived at Batavierstraat 2 1st floor-back house and on 1 December 1908 he moved to Manegestraat 4 2nd floor, where he lived in with the family of Max Mindlin. After the marriage was concluded in 1909, Joseph and his wife Heintje Michel moved into accommodation at Rechtboomsloot 4 1st floor.
Joseph and Heintje had three children, namely Judith, born on 28 September 1910 at the address Rechtboomsloot 4; Anna was born on 7 January 1913 and Abraham Bernard on 1 December 1914; the last two children were born at Oude Schans 58. Other addresses of the family were Sluisstraat, Martelaarsgracht, Haarlemmerstraat, Heerenmarkt and up from 1935 at Haarlemmer Houttuinen 19 1st floor.
At the beginning of the war, intestinal cancer had manifested itself in Joseph Dobrowitsky, and as a result he was admitted to the Binnengasthuis in Amsterdam. However, he died in the hospital on 12 May 1940 from the consequences of this disease. He was cremated at Westerveld Crematorium. (addition by Ed van Rijswijk, visitor/user of the website).
After the death of her husband, the widow Dobrowitsky-Michel moved with her children to the Sluisstraat 40 3rd floor and on 23 June 1936 they all moved into a house at Slaakstraat 36 3rd floor in Amsterdam South. All were then already registered with the Jewish Council during the mandatory registration of all Jews in the Netherlands.
Her eldest daughter Judith married on 25 March 1942 in Amsterdam the lawyer Günter Max Wollheim from Berlin, 2 years her senior. After they were married, they left the parental home and lived with his Judith at Diezestraat 32 2nd floor in Amsterdam. On 7 September, they were deported to Auschwitz, where Judith died on 30 November 1943 in Birkenau and Günter on 31 March 1944 in Warsaw (see also the pages with stories of Judith and Günter)
Her daughter Anna married Meijndert Bakker on 10 September 1936, a non-Jewish car salesman who lived in Castricum. He came to Amsterdam in 1935 and had a daughter Elizabeth Bakker with Anna. The family survived the war and returned to Geelvinckstraat 67 in Castricum at the end of September 1945.
Her son Abraham Bernard was unmarried and earned his living as a salesman, sales representative and carpenter. From data from his registration with the Jewish Council it can be deduced that according to list 6/24 he was granted an exemption from deportation on 28 July 1942. Information provided by the Westerbork Memorial Center indicates that Abraham Bernard and his neighbor Olga Cohen were deported to Auschwitz on 31 August 1942. (to whom he was not married but apparently acted as if - see the story Marriage, Mock Marriage or No Marriage). According to his death certificate dated 18 January 1952, drawn up in Amsterdam, Abraham Bernard Dobrowitsky died on 31 March 1944 in Mid-Europe. (see More about the transport of 31 August 1942)
The widowed Heintje Dobrowitsky-Michel, however, was carried off to Westerbork on 13 March 1943 and deported to Sobibor on 23 March in a transport of 1250 victims. On arrival there on 26 March 1943, she was immediately murdered in the gas chambers with all the others deportees. There were no survivors from that transport.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Friedrich Michel and Joseph Dobrowitsky; residence card Amsterdam/Manegestraat 4; archive cards of Heintje Michel, Joseph Dobrowitsky, Judith, Anna and Abraham Bernard Dobrowitsky and Meijndert Bakker; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Heintje Dobrowitsky-Michel; Anna Bakker-Michel and Abraham Bernard Michel; the declaration of the passing from the Binnengasthuis Amsterdam for Joseph Dobrowitsky of 12 May 1940; the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/23 March 1943; certificated of death for Abraham Bernard Dobrowitksy nr. 444 van 18 Januari 1952 uit het A-register 92-folio 75v, made out in Amsterdam.