Abram Joseph Stokvis was a son of the diamond worker and diamond broker Jozef Stokvis and Annette de Vries. Abram was born on 27 January 1904 in Amsterdam and he worked as a clerk and office clerk about 1920, had an education of 3 classes HBS and after his service with the National Milita he was employed as a commercial representative.
The Jozef Stokvis family lived in the Municipality of Sloten since 1914 but son Abram Joseph returned to Amsteram on 20 May 1916 and came living in with his aunt Susanna Stokvis (sister of his father), who was married to Marcus Fruitmann in 1912. Marcus, his children from his previous marriage and his second wife Susanna Stokvis lived at Nieuwe Tolstraat 30 1st floor in Amsterdam since 1912.
Abram Joseph lived since 1919 with the Fruitmann family at Pieter Aertsstraat, but when Marcus and his aunt Susanna left for Antwerp in 1925, Abram Joseph moved to the Gerard Terborgstraat 32 2nd floor.
Meantime he was examined in 1923 for the National Militia and on 6 April 1923 he was declared fit for the service and assigned to the mounted infantry corps. It was found that he was somewhat nearsighted and he was provided with reading glasses.
Abram Joseph lost his parents at a relatively young age: his mother, Annette de Vries died on 19 May 1928, when she was 54 years old and his father Jozef Stokvis followed four years later on 2 January 1932 at the age of 55. Meanwhile, Abram Joseph lived at various addresses in Amsterdam, like at 1st Constantijn Huijgensstraat 105 and at Wouwermanstraat 42 upper house.
On 28 August 1935 Abram Joseph Stokvis married Regina Alida van Zuiden in Meppel; she was a daughter of Abraham van Zuiden and Sara van Huiden. Regina Alida was a nanny and a crafts teacher. After being employed as a nanny in Den Haag for some months in 1930, she returned to Meppel, till she moved from Meppel to Postjeskade 159 1st floor in Amsterdam after her wedding in September 1935. Then Abram Joseph moved in with her too, and there, on 27 May 1936 their daughter Annette Sarah was born. On 21 January 1938 the family moved to Gerard Terborgstraat 32 2nd floor.
Regina Alida and her little daughter Annette Sarah moved to house number 34 1st floor on 28 Februaty 1941, where also Regina’s mother lived. Regina’s father Abraham van Zuiden passed away in Apeldoorn in 1927 and interred in Meppel. Afterwards, in October 1936, her mother moved from Meppel to Amsterdam, to the Gerard Terborgstraat 24 1st floor.
Abram Joseph Stokvis moved however on 5 January 1941 from Postjeskade 159 1st floor to Tweede Boerhaavestrata 58 2nd floor in Amsterdam-East, where he lived in with his aunt Susanna and her husband Marcus Fruitmann. Abram Joseph and his wife lived separately from that time and Regina Alida and her little daughter Annette Sarah had moved from house 32 2nd to nr. 34 1st, where her mother lived since 1936.
Abram Joseph, Regina Alida and their daughter Annette Sarah went into hiding. Only Annette Sarah survived the Holocaust: she “popped up” after the war in Bussum, where she stayed at Bilderdijklaan 15 and she was known at the O.P.K. (War Foster Children).
Regina Alida had received a “Sperre” from the Jewish Council: already on 8 March 1942 she was appointed as crafts teacher at the J.C.B. the Jewish Federation for Vocational Training, located at Westeinde 17, where also a cap factory was located. On 26 March she was formally exempted from deportation according to list 6/24, but still until further notice.
On 30 September 1942 she was admitted in ward 3A of the Central Israelitic Psychatric Hospital in Apeldoorn, “Het Apeldoornsche Bosch”, which was emptied by the nazi’s on 22 January 1943. Patients, staff and occasionally residents of Apeldoorn were deported to Auschwitz then and upon arrival there on 25 January immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, including Regina Alida Stokvis-van Zuiden.
At some point during the persecution of the Jews, Abram Joseph Stokvis became an airspace defender at the Retirement home Blog at Plantage Middenlaan 40 in Amsterdam, presumably in 1942. He may have benefitted the “Sperre” from his wife, from whom he meanwhile lived separated and now lived in with his aunt Susanna Stokvis and her husband Marcus Fruitmann at Tweede Boerhaavestraat 58 2nd floor in Amsterdam-East.
It is not possible to deduce from his registration card from the Jewish Council when exactly he went into hiding, but Abram Joseph appears to have been brought into Westerbork on 26 August 1943 after arrest, where he was imprisoned in the penal barrack 67. A few days later, on 31 August 1943 he was deported to Auschwitz. On arrival there ± 2 September he was selected as a forced laborer, but it is unknown where Abram Joseph Stokvis eventually ended up, what the nature of his "activities" were, nor his exact date of death.
Therefore, the Dutch Authorities after the war have established, also based on testemonioals from survivors and research, that Abram Joseph Stokvis no longer could be alive after 31 March 1944. Therefore the Municipality of Amsterdam was commissioned to draw up a certificate of death for him, in which was established that Abram Joseph Stokvis has died in Poland on 31 March 1944.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Abram Joseph Stokvis, Regina Alida van Zuiden; family registration cards of Jozef Stokvis; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Abram Joseph Stokvis, Regina Alida Stokvis-van Zuiden en Annette Sarah Stokvis; website ITS Arolson/registration card Jewish Council/Regina Alida Stokvis-van Zuiden; Amsterdam residence cards of Wouwermanstraat 23, Gerard Terborgstraat 32 II and nr. 34 I, Postjeskade 159 I and the 2e Boerhaavestraat 58 II; certificate of death made out in Amsterdam, nr. 294 dated 25 January 1952 from register A93-folio 51 for Abram Joseph Stokvis and the Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl.