Rebecca Hillesum was a daughter of Hartog Hillesum and Marianne van Collem. She was born on 5 November 1908 in Amsterdam, worked as a diamond cutter and on 22February 1926 she became a member of section 4 (brilliant cutters) of the ANDB, the General Dutch Diamond Workers' Union. From mid-June 1915 the Hillesum family lived at Moddermolensteeg 12 in Amsterdam until they left for Antwerp in June 1928; father Hartog, his wife Marianne and the children Anna, Rebecca and Joel then lived at Grenaatstraat 7 in Berchem. Rebecca was then deregistered as a member of the ANDB.
Rebecca married Willem Eduard Turfkruijer on 9 August 1929 in Berchem, the youngest of the 12 children of Izaäk Turfkruijer, who died in 1913, and Rebecca Salomons, who died in 1911. Willem was born in Amsterdam on 28 June 1906 and he and his family lived in Antwerp since November 1908. Willem was also a diamond worker; as a 20-year-old, he was registered with the General Diamond Workers' Union of Belgium, the ADB, on 7 September 1926.
Willem Turfkruijer lived in Deurne, Belgium, at Grijspeerstraat 21, but arrived in Berchem one day before his wedding, where they lived as a married couple at Edelsteenstraat 62 and Dixmuidenlaan 328. Both of their daughters, Marianne and Jacqueline Clementina, were born in Berchem. Marianne on 19 June 1930 and her sister on 4 March 1933. From 15 November 1935, Rebecca also became a member of the Belgian ADB, where she was deregistered in 1937 but re-registered on 19 February 1940.
After the outbreak of war, Rebecca and her youngest daughter Jacqueline returned to Amsterdam on 1 July 1940, where they found accomodation with Rebecca's niece, Maria van Collem, at Ceintuurbaan 221, 3rd floor. Maria was a daughter of Jacob van Collem and Maria Hendrika Heibloem and Jacob was a brother of Rebecca's mother Marianne van Collem. Rebecca's eldest daughter, Marianne Turfkruijer, also came to the Ceintuurbaan in Amsterdam three weeks later.
Mother and daughters left on 4 September 1940 for Blasiusstraat 11, 3rd floor, where they lived with another cousin, namely Rachel Turfkruijer-Delmonte, wife of Hendrik Turfkruijer, a son of Hartog Turfkruijer who was an older brother of Willem Eduard. After the departure of his wife and daughters in 1940, Willem Turfkruijer remained behind in Berchem, but on 7 April 1941 he also arrived in Amsterdam and also moved in with his niece in the Blasiusstraat, bringing the family together again.
In Belgium, Willem was a member of the ADB, from which he was officially deregistered on 31 May 1941, but from 30 January 1942, he was re-registered as a member of the ANDB in the Netherlands in section 2. Not long afterwards, on 14 March 1942, Willem was forced to register with the German-ordained Jewish Diamond Workers' Union “Betsalel”, because from that moment on, Jewish employees were no longer allowed to be members of a non-Jewish organization.
After the Turfkruijer family was registered with the Jewish Council, they were granted an exemption of deportation for the time being on 19 July 1942. They received the stamp “Diamantjuden” (diamond Jews). But during the major raids in May and June 1943, many previously exempted "Diamantjuden" were nevertheless carried off to Westerbork and some were even deported to the East. Rebecca and her husband Willem were arrested during a secretly prepared raid on 20 June 1943 and taken to Westerbork, where Rebecca ended up in barrack 58 but Willem (reason unknown) in penal barrack 67.
A month later, on 20 July 1943, from the Turfkruijer family only Rebecca was put on transport; she was deported to Sobibor on the last and 19th train with more than 2200 other victims. Upon arrival on 23 July 1943 she and the others were immediately murdered in the gas chambers. There were no survivors.
Willem, on the other hand, remained in Westerbork until his deportation to Theresienstadt. The two daughters, the 13-year-old Marianne and 10-year-old Jacqueline, were brought to Westerbork on 9 May 1944 and were housed in barrack 35, which was known as “the orphanage”. As could be determined through documents from the Amsterdam City Archives, they still stayed on the 3rd floor of Blasiusstraat 11 after the raid of 20 June 1943.
Four months after the “reunification” of father and daughters in Westerbork, they were deported to Theresienstadt on 4 September 1944. They stayed there until they were added to an exchange transport to Switzerland in February 1945, where 437 Dutch Jews were allowed to join, including Willem Eduard Turfkruijer and his two daughters Marianne and Jacqueline Clementina. Partly because of this, they survived the Holocaust and were repatriated to Eindhoven in early November 1945 and registered on 8 November 1945 at the address 2e Jan Steenstraat 5 in Amsterdam.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Hartog Hillesum (1883); closed down family registrationc cards Amsterdam for Izaak Turfkruijer (1863); archive cards of Rebecca Hillesum, Willem Eduard Turfkruijer, Marianne and Jacqueline Clementina Turfkruijer, Jacob van Collem (1892) and Maria van Collem (1920); Amsterdam residence cards/Ceintuurbaan 221 III and Blasiusstraat 11 III; ANDB membership cards of Willem Eduard Turfkruijer and Rebecca Turfkruijer-Hillesum; membership cards from the Belgian ADB for Willem Eduard Turfkruijer and Rebecca Turfkruijer-Hillesum; Felix archive/Dossiers of foreigners of the city of Antwerp nr.16611 for W.E. Turfkruijer and nr.15108 for Rebecca Hillesum; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Willem Eduard Turfkruijer, Rebecca Turfkruijer-Hillesum and Marianne and Jacqueline Clementina Turfkruijer; Book “Ondergang part II” by Dr. J. Presser, edited 1965 page 223-227 Diamantjuden; Wikipedia website Jew transports from the Netherlands/20 Juli 1943 and 4 September 1944 and regarding repatriation from Switzerland: en betreft de repatriëring vanuit Zwitserland: L. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, among others part 8, page. 708 and 783, part 10b, page 1213 and 1215, part 12, page 54 and 110, as well the website ánd from “Ondergang” part II among others page 498.