Abraham Morpurgo, son of Eliazer Morpurgo and Anna Mok, married 19 May 1937 in Amsterdam Greta Dingsdag, a daughter of Gerrit Dingsdag and Naatje Kool. In 1939 they had a daughter, Johanna Anna, who survived the Holocaust.
Before they were married in 1937, Abraham and Greta lived at home with their parents in respectively Oosterpark 10 1st floor and Nieuwe Herengracht 153 in Amsterdam. After the wedding the couple lived in with the recently moved parents of Greta at Plantage Middenlaan 30A 3rd floor.
Abraham Morpurgo was a vendor at the street market and sold irregular goods and textiles at Waterlooplein, where he had a standing place from Monday till Friday from 1931 till 1934. He also worked as an employee in a butcher shop. However, in the context of the aryanization of the Jewish retail trade, Jews were no longer allowed to sell their merchandise other than on a Jewish Market, only accessible to Jewish sellers, buyers and visitors by 3 November 1941.
After he was registered by the Jewish Council, he got a job at the Jewish Council as guard air protection with the N.I.Z., reason why he and his wife were “exempted from deportation until further notice”. His wife Greta worked as seamstress.
Abraham Morpurgo and his wife Greta Dingsdag were registered in Westerbork where they had to wait to be deported in barrack 57. They had already brought their daughter into hiding by placing her with a foster family so that she survived the Holocaust.
Abraham and Greta were put on transport on 14 September 1943 to Auschwitz. On arrival there, Greta Morpurgo-Dingsdag was immediately killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. However, it has appeared that on arrival Abraham has been selected as “laborer” in or outside the camp. On 20 December 1943 he was in Monowitz, employed at the Buna Werke and from where he was sent to Birkenau on 7 January 1944. It is almost certain that Abraham Morpurgo has been killed in the gas chambers there on 8 January 1944.
Sources among others: City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Gerrit Dingsdag and Eliazer Morpurgo; archive cards of Abraham Morpurgo and Greta Dingsdag; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Abraham Morpurgo, Greta Morpurgo-Dingsdag and Johanna Anna Morpurgo and an addition of a user of the website.