Lena Barend, born 11 October 1909 in Amsterdam to Samuel Barend and Esther van Ploeg, married 16 December 1936 in Amsterdam Hijman Kool, born 27 August 1909 in Amsterdam, son of Mozes Kool and Esther Blits. Lena worked as an office clerk in the diamond trade and Hijman was a diamond polisher. On 9 November 1940 the couple had one son: Max, who survived the Holocaust. After the war he has been adopted and left for Canada with his new family.
After their marriage in 1909, Lena and Hijman moved into a house at Vechtstraat 166 1st floor in Amsterdam-South, where also their son Max was born. In 1942 the family decided to to into hiding and because of that, their son Max has survived the Shoah.
At some point, Hijman Kool and his wife Lena Barend were arrested and Hijman was taken to concentration camp Vught on 16 January 1943 but was discharged from there already on 30 January. However, notes on his registration card of the Jewish Council showed that he was again locked in Vught on 24 February 1943, where he stayed until 21 March 1944.
When also Hijman’s wife Lena Barend ended up in Weserbork somewhere in 1943, she had to stay in barrack 63. She stayed there until she was deported to Auschwitz on 23 March 1944 with her husband Hijman Kool. According to a statement by a certain Mrs. Esther Valenca, which has been registered on Lena’s registration card of the Jewish Council in 1946, Lena Kool-Barend was said to have died in Birkenau due to dysentery at the end of August 1944. Her official date of death therefore is established as on 31 August 1944 in Auschwitz.
Hijman Kool was deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz on 23 March 1944, from where he probably was deported again in January 1945 to the Ebensee concentration camp, a so-called satellite camp (“Aussenlager”) of Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. About three weeks before the liberation of Ebensee camp by the Americans, Hijman Kool died on 20 April 1945, due to the very harsh conditions and hardships there.
Sources include the Amsterdam City Archives, family cards of Mozes Kool and Hijman Kool; archive cards of Hijman Kool and Lena Barend; wikipedia list of Jew Transports from the Netherlands; website Ebensee concentration camp; website Mauthausen Concentration camp; death certificate of Lena Barend register A94-fol.64v, nr. 376 dated 22 February 1952; death certificate for Hijman Kool, register A34-fol.56, nr. 323 dated 23 May 1950 and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Hijman Kool and Lena Kool-Barend.