Isaäc Rodrigues de Mercado was a son of Aäron Rodrigues de Mercado and Abigael Valensa. He married 8 January 1936 in Amsterdam Sientje Rootveld, a daughter of Samuel Rootveld and Alida Brander. One day after their wedding they moved into the house at Hofmeijerstraat 13-1st floor in Amsterdam.
The couple had three children, namely Alida on 7 Juni 1936, Samuel on 9 October 1937 and Betty on 18 July 1940. Alida however died at the very young age of seven months on 9 January 1937. The other two children as well their mother Sientje Rootveld have been put on transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz on 5 October 1942 and on arrival there 8 October 1942, they were immediately killed.
In the context of a decision of Seyss-Inquart of 10 October 1941, Jewish labor camps were established. Partly on the basis of that decision Isaäc Rodrigues de Mercado came also in such a labor camp; he ended up in the Konrad labor camp near Rouveen in Overijssel.
Camp Konrad near Rouveen in Overijssel near the Konrad canal was a labor camp that was originally intended to put unemployed men into the land consolidation work. From 25 April 1942, the German occupiers used the camp as a temporary buffer for Westerbork and the unemployed had to make way for Jewish men. Jews, mainly from Amsterdam, but also from Staphorst and Meppel, were compulsorily employed and simultaneously isolated from their families. A total of 340 Jewish men lived in camp De Konrad. They had to build a road at Staphorst, the “Afschuttingsweg” and a ditch next to it. In the area, this road is now called the “Jodenweg” and the ditch the “Jodensloot”. On 3 October 1942, on Yom Kippur, the men were deported to Westerbork. From there, they were sent to Eastern European death camps on 5 October. Only four survived the war.(Source: wikpedia about Camp Konrad).
On 3 October 1942, also Isaäc Rodrigues de Mercado was transferred from camp Konrad to Westerbork. On his registration card from the Jewish Council an annotation was made on 4 October that he had four Portuguese grandparents ¹) and on 5 October, the note “Sperring”(exemption) was made. On 10 October was mentioned that “he occurs on a Portuguese supplementary list”, whereby was asked “send call-up”, which was returned 14 October without remarks. And on 1 November it appeared that Isaäc Rodrigues de Mercado no longer occurs in the Westerbork camp files.
The above was too little too late because on 5 October already Isaäc has been deported in the direction of Auschwitz. It was the first transport for the 10.000 Jewish persons from the Jewish labor camps who were sent to the East. The transport contained 2012 deportees in total, of whom, during a stop at Kozel, about 80 km. west from Auschwitz, 550 boys and men forcedly had to leave the train to be employed in the surrounding satellite camps of Auschwitz. Thus Isaäc Rodrigues de Mercado ended up in the labor camp Blechhammer.
One of the documents from the former labor camp Blechhammer, that have been recovered lately shows that Isaäc Rodrigues de Mercado has lost his life in Blechhammer on 26 October 1943. After the war, when this all was still unknown, the Dutch authorities has had a death certificate drawn up for Isaäc Rodrigues de Mercado; in it his official date and place of death has been established as 31 August 1943 in Mid Europe.
Sources: City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Isaäc Rodrigues de Mercado and Sientje Rootveld; residence card of Hofmeijerstraat 13; the archive of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Isaäc Rodrigues de Mercado, Sientje Rodrigues de Mercado-Rootveld, Samuel Rodrigues de Mercado and Betty Rodrigues de Mercado; the Wikipedia list of Jew transports from the Netherlands; the Wikipedia website Jewish Labor camps (Joodse werkkampen) and Camp Konrad and Edward Haduch, Panstwowe Muzeum, Auschwitz-Birkenau, protocol 6 maart 1946.
¹): see addition about Portuguese Jews.