Joseph Prins, the son of Simon Prins and Rosa Helmstadt, married 8 May 1940 in Amsterdam Hendrika van Polen, a daughter of Israël van Polen and Esther Mulder. Joseph had another sister, Reina, who passed away in 1915, only 10 years old.
Joseph Prins lived with his parents at Plantage Parklaan 9B 1st floor in Amsterdam, but after his marriage in May 1940, Joseph and his wife Hendrika moved into a house at Sarphatistraat 211 1st floor. On 5 August 1942, also Joseph’s sister-in-law Sara Hendrika van Polen came living in.
On 25 Autgust 1942 all were forced to move again to Tugelaweg 20 1st floor, which would become also their last known address in Amsterdam. On 26 May 1943, during a big raid in the City Centre of Amsterdam and the Eastern part of the city, when 3000 people were taken away by the Amsterdam police, also Joseph’s sister-in-law Sara Hendrika van Polen was arrested and deported to Westerbork. From there, she was put on transport to Sobibor on 1 June, and on arrival there 4 June 1943 immediately killed.
Joseph Prins worked as a warehous clerk and his wife was a diamond cutter. She belonged to the so-called “Diamant Juden”(diamond Jews), and was therefore exempted from deportation by the Jewish Council. This implicated that also her husband was exempted from deportation for the time being. Hendrika received her “sperre stamp” – exemption number 61475 on 17 Juli 1942, a low number between 60.000 and 80.000. These exemption numbers were intended for the so-called “Rüstungs Juden”, Jews who were still valuable for the German war industry. (ready-to-wear, furs, rubber raincoats, diamond, scrap metal and rags).
The data on his registration card from the file cabinet of the Jewish Council show that Joseph Prins was working for the JVvVV (the Jewish Society for Care and Nursing) – a part of the Jewish Council – and was appointed on 5 July 1942 as a sexton (shamash) at the synagogue of the “Joodsche Invalide” at Weesperplein 1, a Dutch institution for the care of Jewish elderly and disabled people in Amsterdam. It appeared also that Joseph was already experienced in working with youth and on 17 July 1942 he was transferred as an “envoy” (a messenger between the various departments of the Jewish Council), to de Department of Education of the Jewish Council at the Tulpstraat 17 in Amsterdam.
On Sunday 20 June 1943 a “Grossaktion” (raid), secretly prepared, took place in the Southern and Eastern part of Amsterdam, a big raid on the last remaining Jews in the city. Germans, together with the Amsterdam police, closed down all streets and went into the houses to grab Jews and bring them to different spots where the Jews were rounded up. From there they were went by tram to the Muiderpoort railway station and transported by train from there to transit camp Westerbork. Most of them were subsequently deported then to extermination camps as Auschwitz-Birkenau or Sobibor or to Bergen Belsen. That day, 5550 Jews were fetched and deported, among them also many “Diamant Juden”(diamond Jews) who were till then still exempted from deportation, and among them also Hendrika Prins-van Polen and her husband Joseph Prins.
However, in connection with the activities of Messrs. Bozenhardt & Company, who forcedly had to buy up stocks from diamond traders to export them to Germany, the German representative at the Rijksbureau voor Diamant (State Office for Diamond) insisted that some diamond Jews should be released from Westerbork. So similarly, also Joseph Prins and Hendrika van Polen were released from Westerbork on 17 July 1943. But already one month later, on 14 August 1943 they were carried off for the second time to Westerbork but on 9 October 1943 again released.
For the third time, both were transferred to Westerbork again on 18 November 1943, where Joseph for unknown reasons was locked in in the penal barrack 67. His wife Henderika stayed in barrack 58. The next day, on 19 November 1944, both were put on transport to Bergen Belsen, ( which the Germans, otherwise regarded as a privilege), because the Germans were planning to establish a diamond grinding in Bergen Belsen. There, Joseph and Hendrika might have stayed in a relatively privileged position, in a special barrack, with exemption of work in commands, just like the other workers of the diamond group.
By developments in the war the members of the diamond group had to pack their bags on 4 December 1944; the men, among them Joseph Prins, were sent to Sachsenhausen and the next day, 5 December 1944 the women, among them Hendrika van Polen, were transported to Beendorf. Because of their special abilities, they were not sent to the gas chambers but employed in companies to perform fine-mechanical work. Men in the instrument factory in Sachsenhausen and women in a factory of aircraft parts.
Hendrika van Polen eventually survived the Holocaust. It turned out that she was not liberated through the mediation of the head of the Swedish Red Cross, Count Folke Bernadotte, but was sent from Hamburg to Denmark on 30 April 1945 on the initiative of the SS man Franz Göring. She eventually ended up in Sweden From where she was later repatriated to the Netherlands, after which she remarried in 1951 to Nathan Bertus Frank, a son of Joachim Samuel Frank and Dora Heijmans. He survived the Shoah by going into hiding. Joseph Prins died on 31 January 1945 due to hardship in the External Kommando Oranienburg (Sachsenhausen).
City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Joseph Prins and Hendrika van Polen, residence card of Sarphatistraat 211 1st floor; het geheugen van planzuid/razzia 20 Juni 1943; “Ondergang”volume II by J. Presser, pages 223-227 Diamant Juden (Diamond Jews); Onderzoeksgids oorlogsgetroffenen WOII; about Beendorf during WWII and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Joseph Prins and Hendrika Prins-van Polen and an addition of the user of the website Jan van Ommen.