Biography

The fate of Mietje Mug.

Mietje Mug was the youngest of the three children of the deaf and dumb couple Isaäc Mug and Esther Brilleman. She was born on 19 February 1923 in Rotterdam and lived at home with her parents and brothers Abraham and Meijer, who were born respectively in 1917 and 1919.

Possibly the care for the parents was too heavy and on 19 August 1931 the 8-year old Mietje was placed with her grandparents Mijer Brilleman and Schoontje Aandacht, who lived in the lange Houtstraat 1st floor in Amsterdam. After 1½ years, on 17 January 1933, she returned to her parents, who then lived at Josephlaan 49 in Rotterdam.

However, on 9 September 1936 Mietje has been moved again from her home, now to Santpoort-Zuid in the municipality of Velsen, where she was accommodated in “Huize Dina”, located at Duinlustparkweg 60, a home were Jewish girls from disadvantaged backgrounds could receive a safe and virtuous education. (source Open Joodse Huizen 2018). It offered a home to Jewish working girls who could no longer be cared for by their parents, due to circumstances, usually poverty. The girls, as young as they were, often had a hard life. (source Joods Monument).

Mietje Mug, meanwhile working as a dressmaker, was one of the fifteen girls who lived in the Orthodox Jewish house “Huize Beth Dina”, who were all deported to the death- and extermination camps. However, Mietje left Velsen for Amsterdam in August 1942 and was registered on 7 August at the address Lange Houtstraat 41 with her maternal grandparents: Mijer Brilleman and Schoontje Aandagt.

It is not possible to determine from the details of her registration card with the Jewish Council when or why Mietje Mug was arrested, but in the night of 18 to 19 September 1942 she was carried off from Amsterdam to Westerbork. From there, 19-year-old Mietje Mug was deported to Auschwitz on Monday, 21 September 1942, with 712 other deportees and upon arrival there on 24 September  1942, immediately gassed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Isaäc Mug; the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Mijer Brilleman; archive card of Mietje Mug;  residence card Amsterdam of Lange Houtstraat 41 I; the Red Cross archives/transportlist 18/19 September 1942 Amsterdam-Westerbork; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Mietje Mug; the Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and information about Huize Dina at the websites Joods Monument, Open Joodse Huizen, Oorlogsslachtoffers IJmond en Joods Amsterdam.

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