Biography

About Nathan Tas and his wife Reina Dreese.

Nathan Tas, born on 14 February 1879 in Amsterdam, was a son of Mozes Levie Tas and Mietje Benedictus Adelaar. He was a brilliant polisher by trade and married Reina Dreese on 18 February 1904 in Weesp, the daughter of Hartog Dreese and Flora Koster, who was born on 5 November 1880 in Amsterdam. The couple had three children, viz. Mietje in 1905, Hartog in 1907 and Marianne in 1910.

Nathan and Reina moved in August 1908 with their children Mietje and Hartog from Amsterdam to the Hooge Laarderweg (later: Hoge Larenseweg) in Hilversum, where Marianne was born in May 1910, but returned to Amsterdam in November 1910 where they then found living space in the Marcusstraat 19 1st floor (a side street of the Weesperzijde).

They lived there, until on 26 January 1933 a move followed to Waverstraat 64 3rd floor in the Amsterdam River district, where two months later, in March 1933, his son-in-law Israël de Vries with his wife Mietje Tas and son Meijer (Max) came to live there too. On 1 July 1940 Nathan and Reina Tas left there for Uithoornstraat 35 2nd floor. 

The registration with the Jewish Council shows that on 28 August 1941 Reina Tas-Dreese was admitted briefly in the Apeldoornse Bos (the Central Israelitic Psychatric Hospital), after which her husband Nathan Tas moved in with the mother-in-law of his daughter Mietje, Mietje de Vries-van Coeverden, who lived with her two unmarried daughters Sarlina and Johanna de Vries at Lekstraat 24 1st floor in Amsterdam-South since 15 March 1937.

Nathan Tas was arrested and carried off from his last address to Westerbork on 17 September 1942 and the next day, on 18 September, deported to Auschwitz. On arrival there on 21 September 1942, he was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. 

Over 2 ½ months after her admission in the Apeldoornse Bos, on 12 November 1942, Reina Tas-Dreese was registered in Westerbork. She was deported to Auschwitz on 16 November, where she was murdered directly too in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau on arrival on 19 November 1942. 

Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Nathan Tas, archive cards of Nathan Tas, Reina Dreese and of Mietje, Hartog and Marianne Tas; Amsterdam residence cards of Waverstraat 64 III and Lekstraat 24 I and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Nathan Tas and Reina Tas-Dreese.

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