Biography

About Jacob Con and his wife Esther van Gelder.

Jacob Con was a son of Hijman Jacob Con and Heintje van Moppes. 20 December 1906 he married in Borgerhout (Antwerp) Esther van Gelder from Amsterdam, a daughter of Mozes van Moppes and Eva Neeter. The Peoples Registry of Amsterdam shows that Jacob en Esther had four children, namely Henriette born 28 April 1908 in Antwerp, Eva born 6 April 1910 in Borgerhout, Flora born 16 April 1913 also in Borgerhout and Frederika born 4 April 1916 in Amsterdam. Only Henriette survived the Shoah. The other three children were deported 27 August 1942 from Mechelen to Auschwitz with Convoy 6, together with their mother and after arrival there, they have been killed.

Jacob Con was born into a family with eight children, of whom one child presumably has died at its birth. It is also known that his brother Levie emigrated in 1926 to Tel Aviv and that his brother Joseph stays in the Psychiatric Hospital at Geel since April 1938. Of the other children, namely Bloeme, Margaretha, Samuel and Willem, only Jacob self and Bloeme were killed in the Shoah. The others most likely have survived the Holocaust.

Jacob and his siblings were all born in Amsterdam. His parents Hijman Con and Heintje van Moppes left Amsterdam for Antwerp where they were arrived 22 November 1897 and resided there till 1914; their last known address was Duifstraat 26 in Antwerp.

Jacob Con and his wife Esther van Gleder lived at Lange Nieuwstraat 16/18 in Antwerp as also recorded in the certificates of death of Jacob and his wife; this was their last known address. Presumably they were arrested in Antwerp in the night of 16 August 1942 and brought to the transfer camp at Mechelen. 25 August 1942 Jacob was deported with Convoy 5 to Auschwitz, were he arrived 27 August and got killed. His death was registered at 31 August 1942.

His wife Esther van Gelder and her children Eva, Flora and Federika were deported to Auschwitz with Convoy 6. This convoy includes mainly called up people who were already present in the transfer camp, It left Mechelen 27 August and arrived at Auschwitz 30 August 1942. At Kozel - 80 km West from Auschwitz - the train has stopped; there the Germans selected boys and men between 15 and 50 years old, who were supposed to be fit to work in the surrounding satellite camps, and forced them to leave the train. All other deportees, mainly women, among them Esther Con-van Gelder and her daughters Eva, Flora and Frederika, were killed after they arrived  in Auschwitz. The death of Esther van Gelder has been registered at 31 August 1942.

Sources: The Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp, Nr. 90801 images 568-611; certificates of death for Jacob Con and Esther Con-van Gelder, 1950-B275 and 1950-B72; City Archive of Amsterdam, Parts of the Peoples Registry of the Jacob Con family in Amsterdam and the Memorial of the deportation of the Belgian Jews, pages 22-23 -143 en 543.

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