Rebecca Michel was the third youngest of the children of Friedrich Michel and Lena Reiwit. She was born at Koestraat 13 in Amsterdam on 12 February 1898 and she worked later as a housekeeper. Until August 1936 she lived "at home" with her parents and sibs which also meant that she had moved several times since then, before the family ended up in Lange Houtstraat no. 26 in 1927.
When her father Friedrich Michel died there in 1931, all the children had left the "parental home" already and her mother Lena Rprotein was left alone there. In October 1936 she moved to Tugelaweg 91 in Amsterdam-East. Rebecca's unmarried brother Marcus, who had also already left the parental home, later moved back in with his mother.
Rebecca had meanwhile given birth to two children, but she was not married. Her eldest was Friedrich Michel, born on 4 July 1924, who was also called Frederik. He survived the Holocaust, married a Frenchwoman, had a daughter with her and died in Amstelveen on 25 March 2009. The second child of Rebecca was Anna Michel who was born on 17 February 1930 in Amsterdam.
In August 1936 Rebecca had already moved with her two children to Benkoelenstraat 5 hs and on 22 November 1938 to Vrolikstraat 151 1st floor in Amsterdam East. After the Jews in the Netherlands were compulsorily registered with the Jewish Council, Rebecca and her daughter Anna were "gesperrt" (exempted from deportation until further notice) as the mother of Friedrich Michel (her son), who worked at the "Luggage- and Order Service" of the Expositur department at Jan van Eyckstraat 15. As a result, his sister Anna was also provisionally exempted from deportation until further notice.
When in the summer of 1943 almost all exemptions for deportation had been declared null and void by the Germans, Friedrich obtained another so-called “Ausnahme Bescheinigung”, a very last exemption from deportation, which Friedrich apparently also used to go into hiding after all. According to post-war records, he was spotted in Chalons sur Marne in France, where he undoubtedly also has met his later French spouse.
Unfortunately, the fate of Rebecca and her daughter Anna was that they, as belonging to the very last Jews in Amsterdam, were arrested on 29 September 1943 and taken to Westerbork, where they were locked up in the penal barrack 66. That date, on 29 September 1943, the Germans declared Amsterdam as “Judenrein”. On 19 October Rebecca Michel and her daughter Anna were deported to Auschwitz and upon arrival there, on 22 October 1943, they were immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Friedrich Michel and Rebecca Michel; archive cards of van Rebecca Michel and Friedrich and Anna Michel; birth certificate of Rebecca Michel nr. 1878 dated 14 February 1898 from the register 1898 book 2-folio 157; the file cabinet of the Jewish Coundil, registration cards of Rebecca Michel and he children Friedrich (Frederik) and Anna Michel; Publication “Vermoedelijk op Transport”(Probably on transport – Dutch language only) by Raymund Schütz/Ausnahme Bescheinigung; website Oorlogsbronnen/Amsterdam Judenrein (Dutch language only) and the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl.