Biography

About Aäron Morpurgo and his family.

Aäron Morpurgo, born in 1885 in Amsterdam, was the sixth child of Eliëzer Morpurgo and Judith Sons. Many of his siblings have died already in childhood. But just as Aäron and his family, also his six-year elder brother Wolf was killed in Auschwitz.

Aäron was a market vendor at Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam, where he sold stockings and socks from Monday till Friday. He married 24 February 1909 in Amsterdam Sippora Sealtiel, a daughter of Samuel Sealtiel and Rachel Winnink. They had two children, namely Samuel and Judith.

After their wedding, Aäron and Sippora lived at several addresses in Amsterdam, among others at Molensteeg, Zandstraat, at Rapenburg and at St. Anthoniebreestraat 38 2nd floor, where Aäron’s spouse Sippora passed away 10 July 1938. Their son Samuel married in 1933 and since then he no longer lived at home, unlike his much younger sister Judith who continued to live with her parents. 

On 26 July 1939 Aäron remarried his sister-in-law Schoontje Sealtiel and they lived at first still at St. Anthoniebreestraat 38 2nd floor, but on 12 May 1941 they moved with their daughter Judith from his first marriage to Reitzstraat 27 ground floor in the Transvaal  district in Eastern Amsterdam. This also became their last known address.

It is quite possible that Aäron Morpurgo already has been put on transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz in July of August 1942. It is known that he was registered as a prisoner in the camp and employed as forced laborer in or outside the camp. As the exact place and date of his death is not known, the Dutch authorities have established his date of death and place after the war as on 30 September 1942 in Auschwitz. 

His spouse Schoontje Sealtiel and his daughter Judith were carried off to Westerbork 14 January and deported to Auschwitz 23 January 1943. On arrival there both were immediately killed there in the gas chambers on 26 Januuary 1943. 

Sources among others: City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card and archive card of Aäron Morpurgo, family registration card of Eliëzer Morpurgo and archive card of Schoontje Sealtiel; website auschwitz.org/museum/auschwitz prisoners; website wiewaswie.nl and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Schoontje Morpurgo-Sealtiel en Judith Morpurgo and an addition of a visitor of the website.

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