Sara Gompel, a daughter of Jacob Gompel and Judith Franco, was born in Rotterdam on 4 June 1857. She married there on 30 April 1879 the 28-year old Jacob Coster, a son of Emanuel Coster and Eva de Wijse, who was born on 6 March 1851 in Den Haag.
The Emanuel Coster family consisted of father, mother and seven children, of whom Jacob Coster was the first born. Jacob’s father Emanuel however passed away on 27 February 1870, aged 75 years, after which his mother, the widow Eva de Wijse and her children in March 1874 came to Rotterdam and then lived at Diergaardekade 14.
Sara Gompel and Jacob Coster had five children together, viz. Emanuel in 1880, Barend in 1883, Judith in 1888, Isedor in 1891 and Jacques in 1893, of whom Emanuel and Isedor were mixed married; of them nothing is further known. Barend was murdered with his family in Auschwitz, but Judith Coster, who was married to Abraham Polak and operated a boarding house in the Witte van Haemstedestraat 30b in Rotterdam and where also mother Sara Gompel lived, were both found deceased in their house on 17 August 1942 at 19.00 hours.
Also Sara Coster-Gompel was found deceased that 17th of August 1942, at the same address and at the same hour. She was, just as her daughter Judith and he son-in-law Abraham Polak interred in the Jewish Cemetery Toepad in Rotterdam.
The youngest son of Sara and Jacob, Jacques Coster, who was married to Marianne van Westerborg, (and a family member Hanna van Westerborg), have also taken their own lives to escape persecution by the Germans. On 30 July 1942 at 23.00 hours Jacques Coster, his wife Marianna van Westerborg and Hannah van Westerborgh were found deceased in their house at Beukelsweg 81b in Rotterdam. They were all interred in the Jewish Cemetery Toepad in Rotterdam.
Sara Gompel’s spouse Jacob Coster passed away already in Rotterdam on 24 January 1909 and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery Toepad in Rotterdam too.
Sources include the Municipal Archive of Den Haag, certificate of death of Emanuel Coster, nr. 429; website stenenarchief.nl/grave Jacob Coster; the City Archive of Rotterdam, certificates of death 3216 for Sara Coster-Gompel,3215 and 3217 for Judith Polak-Coster and Abraham Polak and nrs. 3034 and 3032 and 3033 for Jacques Coster, Marianne van Westerborg and Hannah van Westerborg; website Joodserfgoed Rotterdam/Beukelsweg 81b and additions of visitors of the website.