Aron Elekan was the youngest of the two sons of Simon Elekan and Klara Finsij en was born in Amsterdam on 21 May 1898; his elder brother Jonas was born on 18 April 1897. Aron was working as a diamond polisher. On 24 February 1917 he became a member of the ANDB, the “Algemende Nederlandse Diamantbewerkers Bond”(the Diamond workers Union). He was admitted as brilliant polisher in section 2. His membership ended on 3 June 1937.
Meantime, Aron was alreay married on 20 August 1925 in Amsterdam to Rosetta de Metz, who was born on 24 July 1900 as a daughter of Gaim de Metz and Henriette Cohen-de Lara. The couple had two sons, viz. Simon on 6 February 1928 and Hans on 15 July 1934.
When Aron was still unmarried, he lived at home with his parents and brother at Ruyschstraat 74 1st floor in Amsterdam. But after the wedding was concluded, Aron and his wife Rosette moved into a house at President Brandtstraat 6 1st floor in the Transvaal district of Amsterdam-East. On 3 December 1929 they moved to Ruyschstraat 80 2nd floor and on 3 July 1934 to Gaaspstraat 39 ground floor in Amsterdam-South, where Aron started a fish-, fruit, butter- and cheese shop.
When the war broke out and the anti-Jewish measures of the Germans led to all Jews in the Netherlands having to be registered (from January 1941) and the Jewish population was increasingly excluded from society (forbidden for Jews), they were at some point even obliged to move from smaller towns and villages in the province to Amsterdam. There they were forbidden to do their shopping other than in specially designated Jewish shops.
Per 6 July 1942, the grocery store of Aron Elekan in the Gaaspstraat was designated as a so-called “Joods Lokaal A360”- (Jewish Store), where Jewish inhabitants were obligatory had to do their shopping. That meant also that Aron was exempted from deportation for the time being (gesperrt bis auf weiteres) and because of that, also his wife and children.
On 20 June 1943, the Germans held a secretly prepared raid, where that Sunday more than 5500 Jewish citizens of Amsterdam were arrested and carried off to Westerbork. Rosette and her two boys Simon and Hans ended up in barrack 65 and Aron in barrack 60.
To escape deportation, while he had been an ANDB-member till June 1937, Aron made a request at the Regional Employment Office at the Passeerdersgracht to provide him with an ANDB declaration in his name. On 27 June 1943 followed a second request, which showed that the Regional Employment Office did not supply that declaration; his request was conveyed to the N.A.F. – Nederlands Arbeiders Front – (a National Socialist Labour Union) – section diamond.
On 1 July the ANDB declaration arrived but it has been returned to sender on 3 July: already on 29 June 1943 Aron Elekan, his wife Rosetta de Metz and their sons Simon and Hans were put on transport to the extermination camp Sobibor, where they have been murdered immediately in the gas chambers upon arrival there on 2 July 1943. Of this transport of almost 2400 victims, there were no survivors.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Simon Elekan (1866) and Aron Elekan, archive cards of Aron Elekan and Rosetta de Metz; membership card of Aron Elekan from the ANDB; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Aron Elekan, Rosetta Elekan-de Metz and Simon and Hans Elekan; the Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and an addition of a visitor of the website.