Biography

About Leendert van Geldere and his wife Marie van Geldere.

Marie van Geldere, a daughter of Saul van Geldere and Sientje Fransman, was born in Doesburg on 5 October 1893. She married in Amsterdam the peddler and street market vendor Leendert van Noord on 19 February 1919, a son of Mozes van Noord and Marianne Springer. The couple had one son, Maurits, who was born in Amsterdam on 24 May 1920.

After Marie and Leendert were married in 1919, they moved into a house in the Rapenburgerstraat 74 in Amsterdam. Until 1938 they kept living in the same street, but moved still four more times to other house numbers. On 6 April 1938 they moved to Muiderstraat 35 2nd floor.

As a street market vendor at the Waterlooplein, he sold textiles in 1941. In the summer of 1942 he had a job as “co-worker at the distribution of textiles for Jews with the Jewish Council” and as such he was “exempted from deportation because of function” and because of his “Sperre” also his wife and son Maurits were exempted from deportation until further notice.

Despite the exemption, Maurits was called up to the “Arbeitseinsatz” on 20 July 1942, but possibly because of his father's “Sperre”, he was granted a (temporary) exemption from deportation on 23 July and at home again, the Van Noord family apparently discussed the best way to go into hiding.

Their son Maurits was given the opportunity on 15 September 1942 to be admitted to the Provincial Hospital in the municipality of Bloemendaal, better known as the Meer-en-Berg psychiatric institution in Santpoort. However, when the Germans claimed the grounds and buildings of the Provincial Hospital on 4 January 1943 for the construction of the "Atlantikwall", all 1,334 patients and 404 members of the staff were evacuated to both the Willem Arntz Hoeve in Den Dolder and to the Old and New Hospital in Zutphen.

Incidentally, research into the events between 4 January 1943 and 5 February 1943 seems to show that Maurits van Noord was not evacuated from Santpoort to Den Dolder or Warnsveld, but that he sought and found a hiding place. However, not much later he still was arrested there.

Leendert van Noord and his wife Marie van Geldere were also given a chance to escape persecution: on 16 November 1942 they could be admitted as “patients” to a ward of the psychiatric institution of the Oude en Nieuwe Gasthuis in Zutphen. Leendert and Marie then ended up in the so-called "designated ward” of Groot Graffel in Warnsveld, part of the O. en N. Gasthuis in Zutphen, where people could be admitted voluntarily, without the intervention of the judge.

The item “The contribution of Jewish patients in non-Jewish institutions during WWII” shows that Leendert van Noord and his wife Marie van Geldere were regarded as "self-reliant" when they were discharged from the institution. They were deregistered as “recovered” patients on 15 February 1943 and presumably returned to their home in the Muiderstraat in Amsterdam. The discharge date of 15 February 1943 can be related to the deportation of Jewish patients from the Willem Arntzhoeve in Den Dolder on 2 February 1943.

There were Jewish patients from Santpoort and Duin en Bosch in Warnsveld and in Den Dolder, and doctors from those institutions may have informed each other of those events. That was the signal for deregistration for “self-reliant” asylum patients and persons in hiding who were in a “designated ward”. As far as could be deduced from the registration card of the Jewish Council of Leendert van Noord, he was still in possession of the exemption from deportation for himself and his wife Marie.

However, in May 1943 the Germans cancelled most of the exemptions and in the raid of 26 May 1943, about 3000 Jews in Amsterdam-Centre were arrested and deported. Also Leendert van Noord and his wife Marie van Geldere belonged to the victims of this round-up; after hours and hours of waiting at the Muiderpoort railway station, they were carried off by train to Westerbork and ended up there in barrack 57. On 1 June both have been deported to Sobibor and upon arrival there on 4 June 1943 immediately murdered in the gas chambers.

Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Leendert van Noord, archive cards of Leendert van Noord, Marie van Geldere and Maurits van Geldere; John Stienen/Jewish Patients in non-Jewish institutions during WWII; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Leendert van Noord, Marie van Geldere and Maurits van Noord; website oorlogsbronnen.nl/raid of 26 May 1943.

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