Simon Coini

Simon Coini was a son of Hartog Coini and Rebecke van Beem. He was born on 1 November 1878 in Amsterdam and, like his father, he was a barber by trade. Simon came from a family of six children, of which he was the fifth and the second Simon in the family; the first Simon (1873) had died in the same year 1873, aged only eleven months. His eldest sister Rachel (1869) died in 1935, his youngest siste…

The Ausnahme-Bescheinigung, the ultimate exemption from deportation.

In the summer of 1943, a very large proportion of Dutch Jews had already been deported. This meant that the right to exist of the Jewish Council had been affected in a proportionate way and that many Jewish Council functions and the associated “Sperres” - exemptions from deportation - were abolished. The last group of Jewish Coun…

Jewish tradespeople such as bakers, hairdressers, butchers, fishmongers, grocers, etc. received a special exemption (Sperre), so that the Jewish population could continue to use the tradespeople. As the number of Jewish residents of Amsterdam shrank due to the deportations, these exemptions were cancelled. On July 27, 1942, Meijer de Vries, the General Adviser of the Jewish Council, sent a circula…