Engelina van Geldere was the youngest of the 13 children of Saul van Geldere and Sientje Fransman. She was born in Doesburg on 29 July 1905. Up from 22 October 1920 she lived in with her sister Sophia Johanna van Geldere in Amsterdam, who was married to Barend van Cleef. On 21 September 1921 she left from there to the address Cornelis Schuytstraat 34 parterre in Amsterdam, where she lived in with Peper and on 7 June 1927 she moved to Uithoornstraat 18 1st floor with Mullem.
On 12 March 1928 she moved in with her brother-in-law Barend van Cleef in the Vrolikstraat 299 parterre and on 27 March 1929 she lived in at the Plantage Kerklaan 26 1st floor with her uncle Hartog van Geldere (1891) who then was married to Josephine Mendel. On 15 January 1931 she was registered at the address of her parent, who came living from Nijmegen in Amsterdam in the Zwanenburgerstraat 21 on 2 January 1931.
On 6 Decembe 1933 Engelina married in Amsterdam Pinehas Waaker, who worked as a warehouse clerk in a wholesale company for perfumes. He was born on 2 August 1904 in Amsterdam as a son of Jacob Waaker and Mietje Rine. Engelina and Pinehas had a stillborn daughter on 31 December 1934. But on 16 May 1937 their son Jacob was born.
Before he was married, Pinehas Waaker lived in Haarlem and had a lodging at the address Vrolikestraat 92 1st floor in Amsterdam-East, but after he was married in 1933 to Engelina van Geldere, both went living in the Lepelstraat 79 2nd floor in the city centre of Amsterdam. Her parents Saul van Geldere and Sientje Fransman came living in with them on 29 September 1933. However, Engelina’s mother Sientje Fransman passed away there on 4 April 1934 and she was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen.
On 24 July 1942, the Waaker-van Geldere family received “Tickets To Hooghalen (Dutch abbreviated as BNH). This note on their registration cards of the Jewish Council most likely meant that they as a family have responded to the call for the so-called “provision of additional work in Germany – the Arbeitseinsatz”, for which they received travel tickets to Hooghalen. From Hooghalen station, it was then still a ±5 km walk to the Westerbork camp itself. Only in the early days of October 1942 the railway had been extended to the camp.
On 31 July 1942 they have been put on transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz and upon arrival there on 2 August, Pinehas Waaker was selected to perform forced labor and has been put to work, somewhere in- or outside the camp. But Engelina Waaker-van Geldere and her 5 year old son Jaob were upon arrival there on 2 August 1942 immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
Of Pinehas Waaker is known that he was put to work as a forced labourer under severe and inhumane conditions. Not known is where he had to work nor on which date precisely he lost his life. It is therefore that the Dutch Authorities after the war have established – also based on testimonials of survivors and other informations – that Pinehas Waaker no longer could be alive after 30 September 1942. The Municipality of Amsterdam then was commissioned to draw up a certificate of death for him, in which was established that Pinehas Waaker has died in Auschwitz on 30 Septembe 1942.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Saul van Geldere, Engelina van Geldere and Pinehas Waaker; archive cards of Engelina van Geldere, Pinehas Waaker and Saul van Geldere; the certificate of death of the stillborn daughter Waaker at 31 December 1934; the residence card Vrolikstraat 92 Amsterdam; the website hetstenenarchief/ graf Sientje Fransman; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Pinehas Waaker, Engelina Waaker-van Geldere and Jacob Waaker and the certificate of death for Pinehas Waaker, nr.538 dated 29 September 1950 from the A-register 52-folio 91v.