Biography

About Jonas Kattenburg

Jonas Kattenburg was a son of Samuel Kattenburg and Schoontje Ossendrijver. He married Berthe (or Bertha) Rueff from Basel, a daughter or Leopold Rueff and Julie Levy. The couple had three children, namely Julie (also known as Jetty), Schoontje (also known as Sieny) en Leopold (called Leo). They lived at Nieuwe Hoogstraat 27/29 in Amsterdam, where also the business of Jonas Kattenburg was established: a wholesale and a retail business in shoes.

His daughters Schoontje and Julie have been able to go into hiding in 1943, reason why they have survived the Shoah. Julie is married after the war to Jozeph Sprecher but Schoontje, at that point still under age, had even in 1943, just before she want to go into hiding, received permission in writing from her parents who were already in Camp Westerbork to marry Hartog Cohen. So with this permission they got married in June 1943 in Amsterdam and together they went into hiding and survived. However, Leo, who was already in Camp Westerbork with his parents has been killed in Auschwitz on 11 February 1944, only 10 years old (together with his parents).

Jonas Kattenburg, his wife Berthe and his son Leo were registered in Camp Westerbork on 26 May 1943 and they had to stay in barack 60. Jonas Kattenburg, a whole-saler and retailer of shoes, was able to get a "Sperre" in the Pigol building at Muiderstraat 21 in Amsterdam, not as a shoemaker, but as buyer of leather for repairing shoes. After internment in Camp Westerbork he had even permission one or two times to leave the camp in order to buy leather but he always returned in Westerbork Camp. If he shouldn't return, his wife Berthe and son Leo would have been deported to Auschwitz immediately.

Eventually, Jonas, his wife Berthe and son Leo were deported on 8 February 1944 to Auschwitz and upon arrival there immediately killed on 11 February 1944.

City Archve of Amsterdam, archive card of Jonas Kattenburg; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council of Amsterdam, cards of Jonas Kattenburg and an addition of a visitor of the website.

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