Simon Stokvisch

Simon Stokvisch, the youngest of the five children of Abraham Stokvisch and Sara Waas, was born in Borgerhout (Antwerp) on 7 November 1907 and became a diamond worker by profession and later a driver. From June 1895 his parents had already left for Antwerp, but at some point they left for Düsseldorf-Rath.

On 18 September 1916, the Stokvisch family returned from Düsseldorf-Rath back in Amsterdam, l…

In addition, a Jokos file (number 40466) on this family is at the Amsterdam Municipal Archive. Access is subject to authorization from the Stichting Joods Maatschappelijk Werk.

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…

The men, "fit for work" who were taken off the train in Cosel were generally in the age group of ± 15 to 50 years, in some individual cases slightly older. Those who remained on the train to be transported to Auschwitz were, broadly speaking, the older, weak or sickly men and the women and children. In general it can be stated that the latter groups were killed by gassing immediately upon arrival …