Elias Maurits van der Zijl was married to a non-Jewish woman. They lived at 56 Oosterstraat in Warffum.
In 1917, Ir. E.M. van der Zijl was appointed director of the higher secondary school in Warffum. He managed to convert the three-year course in the school to a five-year higher secondary school. Under his management, Advendo, an association for pupils, was set up and he was involved in the launch of the Warffum football club.
In the first war year, van der Zijl moved with his family to Amsterdam. In 1942, he was deported to Westerbork. A son discovered that his mother was wrongly described as a Jew in the register of births, deaths and marriages. He was promised that his father would be released if he could prove that he had a mixed marriage. By the time this was proved, it turned out that his father had already been deported.
H. Hamburger and J.C. Regtien, Sporen van een joods verleden in Noordwest Groningen (Bedum 1995) 28
A Liro card exists for this person or family. The original cards are kept at the Nationaal Archief (National Archive) at The Hague.