Simon Philips was a son of Izak Philips and Eva Weijel. Simon’s parents married 26 February 1890 in Zupthen but passed already before the war. They had seven children in total. Four of them died at a very young age but Simon, Mientje and Saartje reached maturity, married but were killed in the Shoah.
Simon married Heintje (Henny) Rozendaal (also written as Rozendal), who was born in Borculo, a daughter of Markus Rozendal and Marianne Frank. The couple had two children, namely Izak Maurits (known as Ivy) and Maurits Henri (known as Maurits). Simon, his wife Heintje and his son Maurits Henri were killed in the Shoah. By hiding Ivy Philips has survived the Holocaust.
Simon, his wife Heintje and son Maurits Henri had plans to go into hiding in 1942. Their son Ivy had already a hiding place and worked at some place in the region as farm hand. Simon’s father-in-law Markus Rozendal has died in June 1940 and his mother-in-law Marianne Frank should move to the “Tehuis voor Israëlitische Oude Lieden”, Bet Zikna. (Home for Israëlitic Old People). However, after just one week she died there on the sabbath of 10 October 1942, completely unexpectedly. Due to this unexpected occurrence, the family was forced to postpone plans for hiding. Marianne Frank was interred in the Jewish Cemetery Moscowa in Arnhem. Not long after, Bet Zikna was emptied by the Germans and all the residents were deported and killed.
3 November 1942 was a fatal day for Simon Philips. That day he should receive a false ID-card but the bearer was arrested. Then it came out that this false ID was for Simon and he was arrested by the Dutch police. He stuck at the police station in Zutphen for a week and then transferred to the SD (Sicherheits Dienst) in Arnhem, where he would be sent to Camp Westerbork after a week as a “criminal case”.
His son Ivy tells about it: I was in Arnhem for school and for a visit to my aunt, a sister fo my mother, when the headmaster alarmed my friend and schoolmate that my father would be transferred from Arnhem to Westerbork. My friend immediately went to the address of my aunt to warn me. After hearing, I ran to the station, found my father, who was with other prisoners in the train to Westerbork and travelled with him to Zutphen. There I stepped down from the train and it was the last time I have seen my father
Despite the fact that Simon Philips was a so-called “criminal case”, he was not sent to Westerbork as such. He knew a German officer at the SD in Arnhem, which he had met as a trainee during his education as an independent entrepreneur in Germany. That was the usual course of business for sons of entrepreneurs in that time before the 1st Worldwar. He was als not a member of a student corsp but had social contact with a person of one’s own age of ± 20 years. On 26 November 1942, this officer then sent Simon “just” to Westerbork and not as a “criminal case” because of the “good old times”. Nevertheless, Simon was deported on 12 December to Auschwitz and upon arrival there on 15 December 1942 immediately killed.
Source: website www.wiewaswie.nl; details from the memory of the surviving son Izak Maurits (Ivy) Philips and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Simon Philips.