Susanna Gersons was born in Tilburg on 17 February 1868. She married there on 13 June 1894 the stockbroker Joseph Heijmans from Appeltern, who was born there on 6 November 1861. The couple had six children, namely Benjamin, Nathan, Elizabeth, Abraham Barend, Jacob and Henriette. Benjamin Heijmans died as a baby on 7 September 1895 in Alphen aan den Rijn, just three months old. The eldest of the six children, Henriette, has survived the Shoah.
After their wedding, Susanna and Joseph lived in Alphen aan den Rijn, where all their children were born. At some point, after Nathan, Abraham Barend and Jacob were already living independently elsewhere, Susanna, her husband Joseph and unmarried daughters Elizabeth and Henriette moved to Naarden, where they moved into a house at the Van Lijndenlaan 25.
The registration card of Henriette Heijmans from the Jewish Council cartotheque show that at the time of the obligatory registration of the Jews in the Netherlands in 1941, she lived at Frans van Mierisstraat 35 in Amsterdam and worked for the N.V. de Lange in the Rapenburgerstraat 155 as chief accountant. From the Jewisch Council she was “geperrt bis auf weiteres” – exempted until further notice. Per 15 May 1943 she was registered in the Peoples Registry of Amsterdam as V.O.W. – Vertokken Onbekend Waarheen – (AWOL), usually referring to people who were “in hiding”. She survived the Holocaust and in 1945 her address was P.C. Hooftstraat 63 in Amsterdam. In May 1978 she lived in Zeist. The place and date of her passing was not researched.
Elizabeth Heijmans was a teacher of the German language and possessed her teaching certificate German secondary school. She was also a qualified religion teacher first rank and she was also – when living in Naarden – the secretary of the Jewish Congregation of Bussum. In October 1940 she moved with her parents to Sluisstraat 4 in Assen (province of Drenthe), where her father Joseph Heijmans passed away on 31 January 1942, aged 80 years.
Various sources indicate that Elizabeth taught German in various schools and places as a teacher. During the compulsory relocation of Jews from the “province” to Amsterdam, Elizabeth and her mother ended up in the Schalk Burgerstraat 15 parterre in the Transvaal district of Amsterdam-East. Up from 1 August 1942, she had this function as a teacher German at the education department of the Jewish Council at the Nicolaas Witsenkade 14 and due to that, she was “exempted from deportation until further notice”. This has led to Elizabeth not being taken to Westerbork until 29 June 1943, before being deported to Sobibor on 6 July, where she was immediately killed in the gas chambers on arrival on 9 July 1943.
Susanna Heijmans Gersons, ended up in the Schalk Burgerstraat 15 parterre in Amsterdam-East too, just as her daughter Elizabeth after the mandatory relocation of Jews from the “province” to Amsterdam. Her health was not good because when she was taken to Westerbork on 27 March 1943, she ended up there in the hospital barrack 84. On 13 April she was put on transport to Sobibor and on arrival there on 16 April 1943, she was immediately killed in the gas chambers there.
Sources include the website Open Archieven.nl/wedding Heijmans & Gersons in Tilburg; website Alle Drenten.nl/certificate of death for Joseph Heijmans; website wiewaswie.nl/certificate of death for Susanna Gersons; the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive card of Henriette Heijmans; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Susanna Heijmans-Gersons, Elizabeth Heijmans and Henriette Heijmans and additions and information of other researchers of these families and visitors of the website.