Betje van Geldere was a daughter of Saul van Geldere and Sientje Fransman. She was born on 3 October 1898 in Doesburg and she married Jacob Augurk on 3 June 1931 in Amsterdam. He was a son of Leendert Augurk and his 2nd spouse Katharina van Thijn. Leendert's 1st wife Rosa Bernhard died in childbirth on 7 January 1889 after the birth of her 3rd child. Betje van Geldere and Jacob Augurk had two children together, namely Leendert in 1932 and Sientje Katharina in 1933.
The unmarried Jacob Augurk worked as an errand boy; later he had this job as a dispatcher. When Jacob was married to Betje van Geldere in 1931, they first lived at Lepelstraat 38 1st floor but moved in 1935 to Rapenburgerstraat 161. On 30 July 1938 the Augurk family moved into a house in the Eerste Boerhaavestraat 13 2nd floor in Amsterdam-East.
However, after the outbroke of the war, Jacob took his own life under pressure of the circumstances; the police report of 15 July 1940 mentioned that according to his brother David, Jacob Augurk had been planning suicide for the last few days “since he feared the worst with the political situation for the Jews” and took his own life by drowning. Jacob Augurk then was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen.
Betje van Geldere married again, now to the brother of her deceased husband, David Augurk, who was born 6 January 1893. Betje has still the care for her two young children of 7 and 9 years old. David started working as an errand boy but later he became a warehouse clerk. When David was still unmarried, he lived – besides at home in the Lepelstraat, also in with his brother Jacob in the Rapenburgerstraat and in the Eerste Boerhaavestraat. After the passing of his brother Jacob, David married Betje van Geldere on 6 August 1941.
On 27 July 1942 David Augurk, Betje Augurk-van Geldere and the children Leendert and Sientje Katharina were registered in Westerbork and put on transport to Auschwitz on 31 July. This transport with a total of 1007 deportees, arrived in Auschwitz on 1 or 2 August 1942. Upon arrival there, three members of the Augurk family were already murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz Birkenau on 2 August 1942, namely Betje Augurk-van Geldere and her two children Leendert and Sientje Katharina.
Meanwhile David Augurk was selected as a labourer upon arrival in Auschwitz and he was put to work in the camp. Conditions there were inhumane and the prisoners suffered the hardship. They did not live long. From the death registers of Auschwitz it has been established that David Augurk was already murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 29 August 1942. However after the war this was still unknown and the Ministry of Justice then commissioned the Municipality of Amsterdam to draw up an official certificate of death for David Augurk, in which has been established that he has died in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Leendert Augurk, Jacob Augurk and David Augurk, archive cards of Betje van Geldere, Jacob Augurk ;and David Augurk; Police Report made out in Amsterdam re the sucicide of Jacob Augurk;website hetstenenarchief/grave Jacob Augurk; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of David Augurk, Betje Augurk- van Geldere, Leendert and Sientje Katharina Augurk; the wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl; the website Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau/Auschwitz prisoners/fate of David Augurk and the death certificate for David Augurk nr. 577 made oud in Amsterdam on 15 September 1950 from the A-register 49 folio 98.