Abraham Assou was a son of Isaac Assou and Anna Bed. He married 22 May 1924 in Amsterdam Anna Polak, a daughter of Mozes Polak and Mietje Polak. The couple had three children, namely Marja in 1925, Lily in 1927 and Isaac in 1930. The entire family was killed during the Shoah.
Abraham was a diamond sawyer by profession. After his wedding in 1924, he lived with his wife Anna in the Gravesandestraat 16. After being moved in 1929 to Holendrechtstraat 6 3rd stock, the family moved on 2 May 1932 to Meerhuizenstraat 8 in Amsterdam-South. Later, this address appeared to be also their last known address in Amsterdam.
From 15 July 1942, Jews were systematically deported via camp Westerbork, supposedly to work in a labour camp in Germany in the context of the “Arbeitseinsatz”. Notes on the registration cards of the Jewish Council of the Assou family show however that the entire family had received a so-called “Rückstellung” on 24 July 1942, a provisional postponement of deportation. Abraham’s wife Anna worked as housekeeper for the Jewish Council and his daughter Marja as nurse. However six weeks later, the family still was carried off from Amsterdam to Westerbork and registered there on 10 September 1942.
The Abraham Assou family was deported to Auschwitz on 11 September 1942. This transport was the 5th transport of the so-called Kozel transports and contained 874 deportees. The train stopped at Kozel, a place located ±80 km west from Auschwitz, where 140 boys and men between 15 and 50 years of age were forced to leave the train. They were deployed as forced laborers in the surrounding labor camps of Auschwitz. However, those, who remained in the train were transported onwards to Auschwitz to be killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Abraham Assou belonged to the group of 140 persons, who had to leave the train and ended up as forced laborer in the “Reichs Autobahnlager Annaberg” in Upper Silesia in Poland. After the war, it was known that Abraham Assou had not survived the Holocaust, but it was not known where and when and under what circumstances. Therefore on order of the Ministry of Justice after the war, a certificate of death was drawn up in the municipality of Amsterdam for Abraham Assou, in which his place and date of death were established as on 31 March 1943 in Seibersdorf.
However, in 2015, research was carried out in Poland to victims of among others the labor camp “Reichsautobahnlager Annaberg” in Upper Silesia (Poland) where several certificates of death were found, including those of Abraham Assou. This document shows that Abraham Assou died already 7 December 1942 in camp Annaberg. On the death certificate is mentioned as cause of death “general body weakness” (allgemeine Körperschwäche).”
By establishing the date of death of Abraham Assou, the official Dutch place and date of death of 31 March 1943 in Seibersdorf is maintained, a juridical date and place established after the war by the Dutch Department of Justice.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Abraham Assou and Anna Polak; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Abraham Assou,Anna Assou-Polak, Marja, Lily and Isaac Assou; chapter 3 of the publication "Vermoedelijk op transport" (presumably on transport) by Raymund Schütz; website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland and Edward Haduch, Kedzierzyn-Lozle (Poland), the death certificate of Abraham Assou from the Peoples Registry (Standesamt) Annaberg.