Biography

About Louis Vogel and his wife Catharina Wurms.

Louis Vogel was a son of Joseph Vogel and his 3rd wife Duifje Korper. He was born on 18 May 1923 in Amsterdam and was a painter by trade. Louis was born in the Blasiusstraat but moved on with his mother, who was widowed since 1932, to Tugelaweg 113 3rd floor in Amsterdam-East. At the end of August 1940, his mother remarried Nachman Schouten, a son of Barend Schouten and Saartje Halberstad.

Also at the end of August 1940, mother Duifje, her son Louis and her 2nd husband moved into a house at Tugelawg 51 3rd floor. And when Louis married his first cousin Catharina Wurms on 21 July 1942, also his bride moved in with them and on 24 September she was officially registered at that address.

However, the family, consisting of Duifje Korper, her husband Nachman Schouten, her son Louis and daughter-in-law Catharina Wurms, moved one time again, now to the 3rd floor of nr. 51 at Afrikanerplein.

Catharina, who was employed as machine stitcher at the clothing factory Hollandia Kattenburg, with her fellow workers fell victim to the raid the Germans organized on 11 November 1942 on the factory. Also the family of the victims were fetched at their homes and so Louis Vogel and his wife Catharina Wurms ended up in Westerbork on 12 November 1942.

With the so-called “Kattenburg transport, both have been deported to Auschwitz on 30 November 1942. The transport contained  826 deportees in total, of whom 367 Jewish fellow workers of Hollandia Kattenburg.

During a stop at Cosel, located ±80 km west from Auschwitz,  also 170 boys and men between 15 and 50 years of age had to leave the train; they were put to work as forced laborer’s in the surrounding labor camps in Upper Silesia.

Those who remained in the train, were transported onwards to Auschwitz, among them also Catharina Vogel-Wurms, and upon arrival there on 3 December 1942, she was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

It is very likely that Louis Vogel belonged to the group of 170 men who were forced to leave the train in Cosel. However, unknown is where he eventually ended up, in other words, his exact place and date of death are unknown.

It is therefore that the Dutch Authorities after the war have established, partly based on research and testimonials of survivors, that Louis Vogel no longer could be alive after 31 March 1944. The Municipality of Amsterdam then was commissioned to draw up a certificate of death for Louis Vogel, in which is layed down that he has died (somewhere) in Mid-Europe on 31 March 1944.

Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Duifje Korper, Nachman Schouten, Louis Vogel and Catharina Wurms; residence card Amsterdam/Afrikanerplein 51 3rd floor; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Louis Vogel and Catharina Vogel-Wurms; website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and the certificate of death nr. 581 from the A-register 92 -folio 98v dated 18 January 1952 for Louis Vogel.

 

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