Philip Gompers, always called Flip, was a son of Eliazer Gompers and Rebecca Zwaab. About one year later, after the marriage of his parents, Flip was born on 25 June 1907 at Plantage Badlaan 14 2nd floor in Amsterdam and two years later, on 23 January 1909 followed his sister Anna. In May 1909 the Gompers family moved to Nieuwe Keizersgracht 56 2nd floor. On 5 January 1938 Flip married Jansje (Jeanne) Barmes in Amsterdam, a daughter of Joseph Barmes and the Swiss Lucie Rueff. From this marriage, early January 1941 their son Ernest was born, who survived the Holocaust through hiding.
After their wedding, Flip and his wife Jeanne moved in a house at Amstellaan 13 1st floor in Amsterdam-South. In contrast to his father, Flip was not working in the diamond trade, but worked as an independent commercial agent. In the Amsterdam address book 1939-1940 he was registered as Ph. E. Gompers, Amstellaan 13, Agencies and Commission Trade. Jeanne was a ladies fashion hat maker and made fashion hats for among others the fashion designer Max Heymans and other fashion stores, but had also her own clientele.
It appeared from the registration cards of the Jewish Council of Flip and his wife, that Jeanne has been registered as “Gesperrt – Wehrmacht (bontnaaister)” – (exempted from deportation – Army – fur seamstress), which meant that also Flip had an “exemption because of his wife”. Therefore, his family was exempted from deportation until further notice. Jeanne worked at the Hirsch company on Leidseplein in Amsterdam as furrier/fur seamtstress, where by order of the German Army fur jackets and fur linings were made for the German Wehrmacht on the eastern front.
She belonged to the group of so-called "Rüstungsjuden", Jews who worked for the German war industry, who were considered as indispensable by the Germans. These were people who worked among others in fur- and clothing industries, who had an exemption stamp, numbered in the 60.000 series. Jeanne had no. 64577 and Flip no. 64578. However, in mid-January 1943, Seyss-Inquart had already decided that the last stamps of this group had to be canceled at the end of May 1943. That group then had to be or be deported.
As a consequence of the exemption of Jeanne, Flip had this job as youth leader at the Jewish Council up from 17 July 1942 on the Plantage Parklaan 9, where the Community House of the Jewish Congregation “Beis Jisroeil” was located. This house had an important function during the war, as Jewish Council office in 1941, as medical social agency, as psychiatric consultation agency, as social pedagogical care and as out-of-school youth care.
On 3 October 1942, the chief commissioner of police Tulp fell ill, after which the hunt on Jews was interrupted for four weeks. On 22 October he passed away and Rauter urged that the cremation should be an official ceremony with Germanic SS-rituals, whereby Rauter then his vassal extensively praised. However early November the manhunt in Amsterdam was resumed. Flip, Jeanne and their little son were arrested and taken to the “Hollandsche Schouwburg” and Ernest was accommodated in the crèche across the street. Presumably it might have been the exemption stamps in the 60.000 series that ensured that after a week they were released as a family from the Schouwburg and could return to Amstelaan 13. Especially Jeanne appeared to be “indispensable” for the German war industry and therefore with husband and son released and again exempted from deportation.
In the period that followed, especially Flip's sister, Anna Gompers and her husband Maurits Cardozo put pressure on Flip’s family to go into hiding. Jeanne in particular did not want this - she was exempt from deportation, felt safe guarded and did not want to leave her parents and in-laws alone. But they agreed that they would find a hiding place for the 2-year old Ernest and in February 1943 he was picked up by foster parents from West Friesland at Flip and Jeanne's house in the presence of all family members and, after a big goodbye to all, taken to his new home.
With the help of the non-Jewish downstairs neighbor, Ernest was "taken out for a walk", which happened every day and they then drove to Central Station with the tram, followed by his new foster parents. Jews were no longer allowed to travel on public transport; nothing was put in the way of non-Jews. On the station square he was put from one arm to the other arm as unnoticed as possible, after which the neighbor without her neighbor boy returned to Amstellaan 13 and the foster parents traveled with their new foster child to the city of Hoorn and from there by bus to their final destination in West Friesland. Anna, her husband and her two children also survived the Holocaust through hiding in West Friesland.
When Flip and Jeanne's exemptions were declared as cancelled at the end of May 1943, they both ended up at some point in the Hollandsche Schouwburg. Research has not been able to determine on which date they were brought in there. Flip, however, was deported to Vught concentration camp on the night of 10 June 1943, while his wife Jeanne stayed behind in the Schouwburg. He ended up there in the fur workshop of the clothing company Escotex, a company set up there by the Germans.
After six weeks, on July 17, 1943, Flip Gompers was sent from Vught to Westerbork where he had to stay in the cable and battery barracks 57, until he was deported on 20 July with with more than 2200 more other deportees on the 19th and last train to Sobibor. Upon arrival there on 23 July 1943, everyone, among them Flip Gompers, was immediately killed in the gas chambers. There were no survivors.
While Flip Gompers was deported from Vught to Sobibor on July 20, 1943, his wife Jeanne Gompers-Barmes, who spent more than six weeks in the hospital ward of the Hollanschse Schouwburg where she also had to work, she arrived from the Hollandsche Schouwburg in Vught on 21 July 1943. There she had to stay for one year and worked there at the fur workshop and later she came to work in the so-called Philips Command where among others flash lights were fabricated which one had to squeeze permanently to get light, named “knijpkat” and where radio parts were made. In the night of 2 June 1944 they were all put on transport to Auschwitz but has eventually survived the Shoah and returned via Sweden in September 1945 in Holland.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Philip Gompers and Eliazer Gompers; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Philip Gompers, Jeanne Gompers-Barmes and Ernest Gompers; the book series “Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden” during the 2nd World War, volume 6, part 1, page 255 and further, by Prof. L. de Jong/Stamps and Listings; NIOD with information about Philip and Jeanne Gompers; the personal archive of Jeanne Gompers, like her letter of 20 July 1943 “Dinsdagmorgen”; From the book Dienaren van het Gezag by Guus Meershoek page 257 and 258 about the death of commissioner Tulp; website Joodsamsterdam.nl/Jewish Council and Plantage Parklaan 9.