Sophia Barend, also known as Fie, was the fifth child of Salomon Barend and Lena IJzerkoper. She married Jakob Levitus from Winschoten, who was usually called Jacques, on 24 March 1920 in Amsterdam. He was a son of Heiman Levitus and Esther Kosses. The couple had two daughters, namely Esther (known as Elly) in January 1921 and Lena in August 1923. The entire family has been killed in the Shoah.
After their marriage, Sophia and Jakob lived in Amsterdam, first in Laing’s Nekstraat 10, then in Swammerdamstraat 5 and from 1930 in Rijnstraat 217 2nd floor. Sophia’s husband was a bank clerk at the Amsterdamse Bank in the Sarphatistraat where he rose to be a proxy. After their schooling, the two daughters of Fie and Jacques also worked as office clerks in the bank with their father.
It is known that Esther (Elly) and Lena were called up in July 1942 for the so-called “work-expansion in Germany”. They were supposed to be transported to Auschwitz on 27/28 July, but their parents, Fie and Jacques joined their daughters without being summoned. Perhaps that is why Elly and Lena were initially exempt from the transport of 27/28 July, but then the entire family was deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz on 10 August 1942.
Upon arrival in Auschwitz on 13 August 1942, the deportees, including Jakob, his wife Sohia and both daughters Esther and Lena, were selected to perform forced labor in- or outside the camp. However, it is not exactly known where and when each of them have lost their lives. Therefore, the Ministry of Justice after the war ordered the City of Amsterdam to draw up certificates of death for them, in which is established that Jakob Levitus, Sophia Levitus-Barend, Esther Levitus and Lene Levitus have died on 30 September 1942 in Auschwitz.
Sources include Amsterdam City Archives, family registration cards of Heiman Levitus and Jacob Levitus, archive cards of Jakob Levitus, Esther and Lena Levitus and Sophia Barend; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, Registration cards of Jakob Levitus, Sophia Levitus-Barend and Esther and Lena Levitus and the death certificates for Jakob Levitus reg.A44-fol.76v – cert. nr 448, for Sophia Levitus-Barend reg.A44-fol 48v-cert.nr 282, for Esther Levitus reg.A44-fol.46-cert.nr. 446 and for Lena Levitus, reg.A44-fol.76v-cert.nr. 449, all made out in Amsterdam on 4 August 1950.