Biography

The fate of Hijman Smit.

Hijman Smit was a son of Nathan Smit and Heintje de Wolff. He married 5 November 1921 in Borgerhout (Antwerp) the non-Jewish Anna Clementina van Elsen, born 9 March 1893 in Antwerp as daughter of the warehouse clerk Augustinus Ludovicus van Elsen and Maria Rosalie Jugters. As far as has been researched, the couple had no children.

Since 1902 the family of Hijman Smit moved to among others London and Antwerp. Hijman self was registered already in 1911 in the Municipality of Borgerhout, where he at first as messenger boy and later as diamond polisher and cigar maker earned his living.

On 11 August 1942 Hijman Smit was deported from Mechelen to Auschwitz with convoy II and on arrival there on 14 August 1942 immediately killed in the gas chambers.

Sources among others: City Archive of Amsterdam, copied volumes of family cards 1892-1920/re Nathan Smit; the Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp, nr. 168019, images 621-624 and genealogical information (descendants of Nathan Smit) of a visitor of the website.