Ernst Adam was a son of Heinrich Adam and Therese Cohn. He married 18 February 1931 Rosa Karafiol in Wuppertal (Germany), a daughter of Jozef Karafiol and Minka Tenenbaum. There they had a daughter on 10 June 1932 named Felicitas (Felie). The Adam family, with daughter Felicitas arrived from Germany in Holland before 1935 and lived then in Diemen. Per 6 June 1936 they were registered at the address Parnassusweg 30 2nd floor in Amsterdam.
The marriage however ended by a divorce, which has been registered in the Register of Marriages and Divorces in Den Haag on 14 July 1942. Rosa Karafiol had again a daughter by the name of Susanna, born 6 June 1943 in Amsterdm, who received the family name of Walzer after the war. Rosa and both her daughters survived the Holocaust. She married Leib Walzer in 1950, who was born in Przeworsk (Poland). That date, Susanna, who had received the family name Walzer, was unsubscribed from the Peoples Registry of Amsterdam to the USA. Her half-sister Felicitas has been emigrated to the USA already in 1947. Leib Walzer died 27 October 1971 in Amsterdam and Rosa Karafiol passed away in Amstelveen on 27 August 1991.
After his divorce from Rosa Karafiol in August 1942, Ernst Adam moved to Dongestraat 15 2nd floor in Amsterdam, where he lived in with Paul Schirling. From there, he was carried off 2 October 1942 to Westerbork where he stayed in barrack 83. On 24 November 1942 Ernst Adam was deported to Auschwitz, but the transport stopped at Kozel, located about 80 km west from Auschwitz. There , 100 men between 15 and 50 years of age were forced to step out the train, to be employed as forced labourers in the surrounding satellite camps of Auschitz. They, who stayed behind in the train, were transported further to Auschwitz where the were killed.
It may be assumed that Ernst Adam could have belonged to that group who had to leave the train in Kozel. Eventually, he has lost his life somewhere there in one of those labor camps. His official certificate of death, nr. 250, made out 25 January 1952 in Amsterdam on order of the Ministry of Justice (A93-folio43v) read: on 31 March 1944 has died in Mid Europe, Ernst Adam, born 11 February 1897 in Berlin in Germany, latest married to Karafiol, Rosa, son of Adam, Heinrich and Cohn, Therese.
Sources: City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Ernst Adam, Rosa Karafiol, Leib Walzer and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Ernst Adam and his certificate of death nr. 250 dated 25 January 1952 (A93-fol.43v)