Saul Smit was a son of Nathan Smit and Heintje de Wolf. He was born 7 December 1887 in Amsterdam. At the age of 27 he married 3 April 1915 in London the 28-year old Nora Wilson Belcher, born there 14 February 1886 as a daughter of William Belcher and Hester Tubb Weaver.
Just as his parents, Saul Smit moved already in 1910 from Amsterdam to Borgerhout, where he lived till 1914 – still unmarried. He was a diamond polisher and diamond merchand by profession. Afther his marriage, he came from London to Antwerp again with his newly wed wife Nora Belcher and they lived there at lange van Ruusbroecstraat 16 till 1919. That year they went shortly to Kroonstraat 82 in Borgerhout but their last known address became Ploegstraat 19 in Antwerp. On 7 February 1947, they were officially removed from the population register of the city of Antwerp for lack of "their unknown current address".
Saul Smit and his wife Nora Wilson Belcher were both deported from Mechelen to Auschwitz with convoy VII (7) of 1 September 1942. This convoy arrived in Auschwitz on 3 September and nearly ¾ part of the transport of 1000 deportees were immediately killed in the gas chambers. It is almost certain that Nora Wilson Belcher too belonged to that group of deportees who were killed that 3rd of September 1942.
The City Council of Antwerp presumably have assumed that Saul Smit was also murdered in Auschwitz on that same date. For both of them a death certificate no. 730 has been issued by the City of Antwerp for the Ministry of the Interior, dated 24 December 1949, in which both their date of death was established by a judgment of the Court of First Instance on "in Auschwitz early September 1942”.
However, the transport of 1 September made a stop in Kozel, located about 80 km west from Auschwitz, were men between 15 and 50 year were forced to leave the train, to then being employed in the surrounding satellite camps of Auschwitz. Saul Smit was one of them and eventually ended up in the forced labor camp Niederkirch. In archival research in Poland several death records were found that concerned the Reichsautobahnlager Annaberg and Zwangsarbeitslager Niederkirch. In addition, the certificate of death of Saul Smit was found which shows that he died on 16 December 1942 in the camp Niederkirch.
Sources among others: Population Register of Amsterdam from the City Archive of Amsterdam; website wiewaswie.nl; the Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp, nr. 158709; additions of a visitor of the website; Mr. Melville Goldbaum from London re birth certificate of Nora Wilson Belcher and Mr. Edward Haduch, Kedzierzyn-Kozle (Poland) and the certificate of death for Saul Smit fom the Population Register (Standesamt) of Gross Walden.