Eugène Benjamin van Gelder was the twin brother of Arthur Salomon van Gelder. Both were born in Utrecht on 5 July 1902 as sons of Meyer van Gelder and Flora Meyer. During the war Arthur managed to arrive in Switzerland and has survived the Holocaust. In 1947 he immigrated in Los Angeles (USA).
In June 1921, Eugène Benjamin van Gelder was drawn by lot with his twin brother Arthur, and designated for service in the National Militia. On 18 December 1935, he married Johanna Anita Steinfeld in Bonn (Germany), who was born there on 14 September 1910 as a daughter of Arthur Steinfeld and Wilhelmine Levy.
Eugène and his wife Johanna arrived from Bonn in Amsterdam in 1938, where they have lived in at first with father Meyer van Gelder in the Den Texstraat 11. Per 1 March 1940 they moved to Tintorettostraat 7 1st floor in Amsterdam-South.
On 10 February 1943 Eugène, together with his wife Johanna Anita Steinfeld were arrested and carried off to concentration camp Vught, where he stayed till 17 July 1943. Then the was transferred to Westerbork where he stayed in barrack 57. His wife Johanna however was already sent from Vught to Westerbork within 10 days, on 20 Februray 1943, where she ended up in the hospital barrack 81. She was pregnant and on 11 May 1943 their daughter Yvonne van Gelder was born in Westerbork.
The entire Van Gelder family was deported to Theresienstadt on 5 April 1944. Eugène has been transported from there to Auschwitz on 1 October 1944 and most likely he was carried off in one of the so-called “evacuation transports” from the Auschwitz-complex to the west, where – according to the post-war certificate of death drawn up by order of the Ministry of Justice – he has died on 28 February 1945 in Mid-Europe.
Mother and daughter Yvonne have survived the Shoah; they were repatriated on 22 October 1945 to the Netherlands and were taken care of in the Joodsche Invalide at Weesperplein 1 in Amsterdam. Johanna Anita Steinfeld remarried Johan Bernard Coenraads on 18 August 1948 and moved in October 1951 to her hometown Bonn in Germany.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Meyer van Gelder, Johanna Anita Steinfeld and Eugène Benjamin van Gelder, Amsterdam family registration cards of Meyer van Gelder; website stenenarchief.nl/grave Flora Meyer; website openarchieven/Eugène Benjamin van Gelder; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Meyer van Gelder, Arthur Salomon van Gelder and Eugène Benjamin van Gelder, Johanna Anita van Gelder-Steinfeld and Yvonne van Gelder; Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl; website ITS Arolson/Yvonne van Gelder and Johanna Anita van Gelder-Steinfeld and the certificate of death nr. 152 dated 27 February 1953 for Eugène Benjamin van Gelder, reg.A99-fol.27.