Rebecca Cohen was the youngest of the two children of Maurits Cohen and Roosje Velleman. She was born on 21 February 1920 in Amsterdam and was a seamstress by profession. Meantime she was married on 30 October 1941 to the tailor Levi van der Sluis, who was born on 10 March 1917 in Amsterdam as the son of Ephraim van der Sluis from Rotterdam and Cornelia Bonewit from Amsterdam. On 22 February 1942 their daughter Cornelia was born. They lived at Afrikanerplein 40 ground floor in Amsterdam-East.
Per 18 June 1942, Levi van der Sluis was an errand boy at the department of General Service of the Jewish Council at Nieuwe Keizersgracht Amsterdam, with the I.D. JR-3134. This means he was the link between the different departments of the Jewish Council in Amsterdam. As a result of the exemption “Joods Lokaal (LokA)” of his father-in-law Maurits Cohen, per 19 July 1942 also his wife Sara and daughter Rebecca with her husband and baby Cornelia were “gesperrt”- exempted from deportation on account of “Joods Lokaal (LokA)”.
In the meantime, baby Cornelia van der Sluis wasn’t in Amsterdam anymore but accommodated elsewhere. According to notes of the “commission OPK” (commission War Foster Children) as written on her Jewish Council registration card after the war, it appeared that she was hidden and popped up at the Tromp family at Rijksweg 75 in Limmen, province of Noord Holland. She has survived the war.
But at the end of May 1943, when many exemptions were declared null and void, Rebecca Cohen and her husband Levi van der Sluis were arrested during the raid on 25 May 1943 and carried off to Westerbork, where they ended up in barrack 63. Not long afterwards, on 1 June 1943, they were deported to Sobibor where they have been immediately murdered in the gas chambers upon arrival there on 4 June 1943.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Maurits Cohen, Levie Velleman and Ephraim van der Sluis, archive cards of Roosje Velleman, Maurits Cohen and Levi van der Sluis; the file cabinet of the Jewish Coundil, registration cards of Rebecca Cohen, Levi van der Sluis, Cornelia van der Sluis and an addition of a visitor of the website.