Asser de Haan was born on 10 November 1893 in Amsterdam as a son of Daniel de Haan and Gijsina Bonettenmaker. That family consisted of father, mother and six sons: Abraham, Emanuel, Simon, Meijer, Asser, Jacob and Isaac. Meijer died already as a child of 6 years old in Amsterdam. Simon passed away there at the age of 29 but Jacob survived the war and passed in 1966. Abraham was gassed in Sobibor, Emanuel and Isaac in Auschwitz and Asser was murdered in Dachau.
Asser de Haan lived in Amsterdam, but left on 1 February 1922 for Antwerp to work there as a diamond worker and where he later had his own company as a diamond merchant. On 31 May 1922 he married Rosa Vos in Amsterdam, a daughter of Salomon Vos and Sientje Les. Rosa was born in Amsterdam on 14 January 1893 and after being married, followed her husband to Belgium.
The couple De Haan-Vos had three children, namely Gysina, who was born on 9 September 1923 in Antwerp, then Suzanna followed on 13 July 1925 and after the family had moved to Borgerhout, Evelina was born there on 24 January 1927. Between 1922 and 1941 the De Haan family stayed in Antwerp, Borgerhout and Deurne; per 28 November 1938 they resided in the Lange van Ruusbroecstraat 88 in Antwerp City.
On 24 March 1941, the De Haan family was unsubscribed from Antwerp to the Plantage Kerklaan 14 1st floor in Amsterdam, where they were registered officially on 3 April. Asser, his wife and their three children lived shortly in the Plantage Kerklan with brother-in-law Jacob Salomon Vos, who lived there with his sisters Clara and Rachel. Two weeks later, the entire De Haan family moved to Rijnstraat 154 2nd floor in Amsterdam-South.
Asser de Haan was a diamond merchant and had a business in Antwerp. He and his family were already exempted from deportation for the time being, but on 20 June 1943, during the big raid in Amsterdam, secretly prepared by the Germans, the entire family was still arrested and carried off to Westerbork. Asser ended up in barrack 68 and Rosa and her three daughters in barrack 65.
Attempts to obtain another postponement of deportation resulted in negotiations and correspondence with Puttkammer, and ongoing negotiations with the Rijksbureau voor Diamant, (State Office for Diamonds), as a result of which Suzanna de Haan and her sister Gysina de Haan were released from Westerbork on 17 July 1943. They then left for Amsterdam to Smitstraat 36 in Amsterdam-East, where their uncle Jacob de Haan lived with his family. Further archival records show that they were back in Westerbork on 15 December 1943,were stayed then in barrack 68.
On 25 February 1944 Asser de Haan and his wife Rosa Vos and daughter Evelina were deported from Westerbork to Theresienstadt. From there, Asser was sent to Auschwitz on 28 September 1944 but in the end ended up in Dachau, presumably with the so-called evacuation transports, where he was murdered on 15 February 1945.
That 25th of February 1944 also Evalina and her mother Rosa Vos were deported to Theresienstadt, from where Evalina was sent to Auschwitz on 12 October 1944. She has lost her life eventually on 16 February 1945 somewhere in Mid-Europe.
Rosa de Haan-Vos managed to survive the Shoah. She was on a list of survivors of Theresienstadt in May 1945 and was able to return to the Netherlands. In September 1945 she stayed shortly in the Oosterhoutlaan 33 in Nieuwer Amstel (now Amstelveen) with the De Jonge family; stayed from the end of November 1945 till July 1947 in the Molukkenstraat 119 3rd floor in Amsterdam-East, where surviving relatives lived, to return then again to Oosterhoutlaan 33 in Amstelveen.
Both the sisters Gysina and Suzanna de Haan were married in Camp Westerbork. Gysina to Kurt Hartog from Haaren near Aachen, who was already in Westerbork from November 1939 as a refugee. He belonged to the so-called “Alte Insasse”(old inmates). Suzanna met Jacob David Noach from Zutphen, to whom she got married. Gysina and Suzanna and their spouses were not deported, survived the war and were liberated in April 1945 in Camp Westerbork. After the war, both couples emigrated to the United States of America.
Sources include the Felix Archive of Antwerp, dossier of foreigners from Antwerp for Asser de Haan, no.168681 and from the Municpality of Berchem no. 10600; the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Daniel de Haan, archive cards of Asser de Haan and Rosa Vos, residence cards Amsterdam of Rapenburgerstraat 102, Plantage Muidergracht 35 and Molukkenstraat 119 III; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Asser de Haan, Rosa de Haan-Vos and the children Gysina, Suzanna and Evelina de Haan, Kurt Hartog and Jacob David Noach; Bevrijdingsportretten (Liberation Portraits – Dutch language only) of Tina & Kurt Hartog and of Suzanna & Jaap Noach and an addition of a vistitor of the website