Jonas Fresco

Jonas Fresco, born 7 February 1893 in Den Haag, was a son of Marcus Fresco and Rika Fresco. He was a painter by profession and unmarried. His parents, who were married in 1888, have passed already before the war: his mother in 1932 and his father in 1937. Jonas had two other brothers: Levie, born in 1888, living in Den Haag with his wife and three children and Salomon, who was born in 1891 and liv…

Jonas Fresco died on 1 December 1942 in Reichsautobahnlager Annaberg, Upper Silesia, Germany (today Poland).

The official cause of death: myocarditis (Herzmuskelentzündung).

Source: the official death certificate issued by German authorities (Standesamt).

A Liro card exists for this person or family. The original cards are kept at the Nationaal Archief (National Archive) at The Hague.

Research into the wartime civil registries of one of the civil registry offices in Upper Silesias (Poland) discovered many records that corresponded to deaths of inmates from the "Reichsautobahnlager Annaburg" and "Zwangsarbeitslager Niederkirch" camps.

A certificate of death for Jonas Fresco as discovered there, stated that he died on 1 December 1942  in Camp Annaberg. In it was mentioned an offi…

The period from 28 August to 12 December 1942 was known as the so-called Cosel period. Deportation trains  made a stopover at the freight station of Cosel, located 80 km west of Auschwitz. During that stop, boys and men who were considered fit for work by the Germans, were usually forcibly separated from their families and taken off the train and put to work in the surrounding labor camps of Upper…