Nathan Smit was a son of Levie Isaak Smit and Mietje Benedictus Bak. He was a porter, diamond polischer and diamondbroker. He was born in Amsterdam on 27 May 1857 and lived with his parents at Batavierstraat 222. He married 4 June 1879 in Amsterdam to Heintje de Wolf, aged 22, a daughter of Ekiva David de Wolf, painter and glazier and Mietje Mozes Stokvis. The couple had ten children, of whom a David at a young age died before 1898; of whom daughter Sippora passed away in 1925 as spouse of Zadok Turfrijer and of whom their son Isaac, born in 1879, survived the Holocaust. All other children, namely Jacob, Mietje, Benjamin, Saul, Hijman, Reine and another David were all killed in the Shoah.
The family of Nathan Smit moved from Amsterdam to Belgium, where the lived between 1911 and August 1914 in Borgerhout at Ledegangstraat and from September 1919 til 1926 at Kroonstraat 82. Per 7 January 1926 their address became Plantin Moretuslaan 150 and in December 1934, they moved again to Bloemstraat6 in Borgerhout.
Nathan Smit was deported on 26 September from Mechelen to Auschwitz with convoy XI (11). The Memorial of the Deportation of the Belgian Jews shows that this transport has arrived in Auschwitz on 28 September, and of the 1742 deportees, 1398 persons immediately were killed in the gas chambers. It is almost certain that Nathan Smit, considering his age of 85 years was one of the killed 1398 deportees. Of the others, who were registered in the camp, only 34 persons survived.
Nathan’s spouse Heintje de Wolf was also killed in Auschwitz. She was however deported one year later, on 20 April 1943 from Mechelen to Auschwitz with convoy XX (20). Of this transport with 1631 persons, 231 deportees managed to escape the deportation even before the border. The remaining 1400 deportees arrived in Auschwitz on 22 April 1943, of whom 879 persons were immediately killed, among them almost certain also Heintje de Wolf, who was 86 years of age then. The rest of this transport were registered in the camp and many of them had to undergo “medical experiments” in block 10 in Auschwitz I. However at the liberation still 150 persons of this transport happened to be alive then.
Sources among others: Peoples Registry of the City Archive of Amsterdam; website wiewaswie.nl; the Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp nr. 186483 and the Memorial of the Deportation of the Belgian Jews pages 26, 30 and 31.