Mientje Philips was a daughter of Izak Philips and Eva Weijel. She married at age 28 on 2 November 1920 in Zutphen to the 24-year old commercial traveller Benjamin Heimans, a son of Jacob Heimans and Eva de Winter. It was a twin-marirage as that same day her sister Saartje also married in Zutphen the cattle trader Salomon Meijer, a son of Abraham Meijer and Betje Spier. The couple had two children, namely Eva Edith and Jacob, who has survived the Holocaust. Her sister Saartje and Salomon Meijer had one daughter, who was killed in the Shoah. Also Mientje's brother Simon Philips was killed in the Holocaust.
The Heimans family resided at Stationsweg 23 in Zutphen but on 4 November 1942 they were interned in Camp Westerbork. On the registration card of Benjamin Heimans is recorded that they stayed on 7 November in barack 85 and one week later on 13 November in barack 59. On 24 May 1944 the family was still in “Stammlager” Westerbork, but they were put on transport from group family camp Westerbork to Theresienstadt on 4 September 1944. There Mientje and her daughter Eva stayed one month, as they were deported from there to Auschwitz on 4 October 1944. Upon arrival there on 6 October, Mientje Heimans-Philips and her daughter Eva were immediately killed. Benjamin Heimans was already deported to Auschwitz on 29 September 1944 and had still to endure more than two months of hardship in Auschwitz, before he was killed there on 15 December 1944.
According the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Jacob Heimans did not live at his parental home address anymore; his last known address was Wethouder Nijhuisstraat 148 in Enschede and he too belonged to the group of 774 deportees who were put on transport from group family camp Westerbork to Theresienstadt on 4 September 1944. He has survived the Shoah.
Sources: website www.wiewaswie.nl; website United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/person_advance_search.php); the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Benjamin Heimans/Heymans, Mientje Heimans-Philips and Eva Heimans/Heymans and an addition of a visitor of the website.