Biography

About Sebilla Meiler

Sebilla Meiler was a daughter of the Government-rural constable Abraham Meiler and Henriette Coopman. On 16 November 1933, she married in Rotterdam at age 47 the non-Jewish Johannes Maria Josephus Bak, 61 years old, a son of Martinus Bak and Geertruida Haleboer. Sebilla was born into a family with five children of whom Marcus, Sophia and she herself have been killed in the Shoah. Her sister Sara and brother Karel have survived the Holocaust. Her father died already in 1896 and her mother in 1937.

Sebilla was trained as a nurse and in April 1914, she lived inernally at the “Rijks Kweekschool voor Vroedvrouwen” (government seminary for midwives) as an apprentice midwife at Henegouwerlaan 72 in Rotterdam. After one year, in April 1915, she moved from there to her mother, Henriette Meiler-Coopman, who resided since 1902 in Hillersberg, whereafter she moved in August 1915 to Eerste Helmersstraat 104 in Amsterdam.

Before her marriage in November 1933, she has resided for some time in Kota Radja (Dutch East Indies), working as a nurse. After her marriage, she lived in Voorburg with her husband.

Her husband survived the war. According to her registration card of the Jewish Council, Sebilla Meiler was deported from Camp Westerbork to Auschwitz on 17 August 1942 and upon arrival there  immediately killed on 19 August 1942.

City archive of Rotterdam, Peoples Registry re. the Meiler family, family registration cards of Sebille Meiler,  wedding certificate Rotterdam Meiler/Bak and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, card of Sebilla Meiler.

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