Elias Parfumeur fled the Netherlands on July 27, 1942 together with a friend, Hans Sternberg, in order to reach non occupied France or Switzerland, probably assuming only working age men would be deported to work camps. They reached Lyons and were allowed to stay under control. In the first days of September, Vichy France having launched roundups of foreign Jews, Elias and Hans fled to Switzerland through Geneva, but were turned back twice by the Swiss military. French police sent them to the internment camp in Châteauneuf-les-Bains, from where they escaped on September 25. Sternberg managed to hide and seems to have survived the war. Elias Parfumeur successfully entered Switzerland on his third attempt on October 2, and was granted asylum. But mindful of the terrible fate awaiting his family, he asked to leave Switzerland and went back to Amsterdam to fetch his parents and younger brother. The four of them were arrested during their flight near the French-Swiss border in Belfort, sent to prison in Belfort and then to Drancy on May 22, 1943, from where they were deported to Auschwitz on June 23.
Sources: Geneva State Archives; Swiss Federal Archives , E 4264(-), series N_4060. French archives: AD63 277W; AD74 14W20, 14W34.