Biography

About Trijntje Vogel and her husband Abraham van Gelderen.

Trijntje Vogel was the sixth child of Salomon Vogel and Sara Roodveldt and was born in Amsterdam on 4 May 1923. Before she got married, she worked as a maid. Trijntje married on 254 June 1942 to the son of Manuel van Gelderen and Duifje Polak: Abraham van Gelderen, who was employed as a warehouse man. They had no children.

A month after they were married, they were called up for transport to Auschwitz, which followed on 31 July 1942. Upon arrival there, ±2 or 3 August, both were put to work but it is unknown for both what the “labor” was they had to do. It is also not known when Trijntje exactly has died there. Initially this also applied to Abraham van Gelderen, but the so-called “Sterbebücher from Auschwitz” revealed his real date of death: 7 October 1942.

When the Dutch authorities after the war had no knowledge of this “Sterbebücher” from Auschwitz, they established partly on the basis of research by the Red Cross and testimonials from survivors, that both Trijntje van Gelderen-Vogel and Abraham van Gelderen no longer could be alive after 30 September 1942.

The Municipality of Amsterdam then was commissioned to draw up certificates of death for both of them, in which was established that Trijntje van Gelderen-Vogel as well Abraham van Gelderen too, had died in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942.

Of Trijntje Vogel, the real date of death remains unknown but as appeared from the Sterbebücher from Auschwiz that 7 October 1942 was the real date of death of Abraham van Gelderen.

Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Trijntje Vogel and Abraham van Gelderen; certificates of death for Trijntje van Gelderen-Vogel from the A-register 52-folio 4 and for Abraham van Gelderen deed 138 from the A-register 51-folio 24verso and the website Museum and Memorial Auschwitz-Birkenau/Auschwitz Prisoners/Abraham van Gelderen.

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