David Porcelijn was the second youngest of the seven children of Salomon Porcelijn and Rika Augurk and was born on 8 May 1913 in Amsterdam. David had three sisters, all of whom worked as seamstresses in the clothing industry, and four brothers, of which only Louis had a commercial occupation: he was a merchant. David himself and his two brothers were more artistically inclined: David (who, incidentally, started his career as a radio engineer) and Leendert were musicians and Hartog was a ballet dancer.
Like the other members of the Porcelijn family, they lived in Nijmegen for a short time, but returned to Amsterdam on 20 October 1924, although at different addresses. On 14 October 1936, David Porcelijn married in Amsterdam the machine-stitcher Esther Blaaser, who was born in Rotterdam on 17 November 1918 as a daughter of Aron Matthieu Blaaser and Duifje de Jong.
After David and Esther were married, they moved into a house at 52 Lepelstraat II in the old center of Amsterdam, where their daughter Rika was born on 28 February 1937. On 26 February 1940 they moved to Utrechtsedwarsstraat 116 II, which would also turn out to be their last known address in the Netherlands.
David's wife Esther and daughter Rika received a call on 17 July 1942 to report for the so-called "Arbeitseinsatz", but because of his incorporation into the Dutch army in 1940, David Porcelijn was labeled as a "former soldier" in 1942 and he and his family members received a “MIL” annotation on their registration card with the Jewish Council. In July 1942, the Jewish Council had proposed a number of categories of Jews for deferment (postponement of employment in Germany), including former soldiers, including KNIL soldiers so for example, also soldiers who fought for the fatherland in the May 1940s. At first this led to an actual reset, but soon not anymore. (source: Raymund Schütz).
David, his wife Esther and daughter Rika obtained this deferment but were arrested at the beginning of October 1942 at the time of the massive raids and deported to Westerbork where they were brought in between 3 and 5 October 1942 and put on transport to Auschwitz on 12 October. On 15 October 1942 the deportation train arrived in Auschwitz where Esther Porcelijn-Blaaser and her 5-year-old daughter Rika were murdered immediately upon arrival in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
David Porcelijn, 29 years old, on the other hand, was found suitable to be deployed as a forced laborer at the time of the selections. It is not known whether that was inside or outside the camp and where. However, from the so-called “Sterbebücher van Auschwitz” (the death register), it appeared that David Porcelijn has been murdered on 19 January 1943 in Auschwitz.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Salomon Porcelijn and David Porcelijn, archive cards of David Porcelijn and Esther Blaaser; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of David Porcelijn, Esther Porcelijn-Blaaser and Rika Porcelijn; the wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland and the death certificate for David Porclijn, made out in Amsterdam, nr. 253 dated 7 December 1950 from the A-register-60-folio 44.