Biography

The fate of the Gompertz sisters, Charlotte and Carolina.

Charlotte and Carolina Gompertz were daughters of Bernard Elias Gompertz and Bertha de Beer, the second spouse of their father. His first wife Sara Schoolmeester passed away at the age of 24 in 1878. From the first marriage, a son Edmond was born who died in 1930. From the second marriage eight children were born, of whom the youngest was a stillborn daughter and four children died in childhood. Only Charlotte, Carolina and their brother Herman reached adulthood but were killed during the Shoah.

Charlotte and Carolina were both born in Haarlem: Charlotte 20 September 1882 and Carolina 14 October 1881 and both were unmarried. Their father committed suicide on 5 February 1894 in his cell in the House of Detention at Weteringschans in Amsterdam, after being arrested the day before for counterfeiting. After the death of her husband, their mother, Bertha de Beer moved to Zandvoort where she was running a boarding house and a restaurant and the children came with her.

Charlotte and Carolina, together with their mother arrived from Zandvoort in Amsterdam in October 1903 but left for Zandvoort again in August 1908, where they lived till November 1936. Bertha de Beer had died in 1933 there and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Haarlem. In November 1936, the Gompertz sisters left for France: at first to Paris and later they went to Nice.

On 4 Octobe 1939 they returned to the Netherlands and were registered in Amsterdam at the address Beethovenstraat 91 1st stock. In June 1940 they moved to Zuider Amstellaan 248 parterre and in February 1941 to Memlingstraat 7 parterre, where they lived in with a lady living alone, Mrs. Evalina Glazer. This became also their last known address in Amsterdam.

On 20 May 1943 they were both arrested during the big raid in Amsterdam and carried off to Westerbork, where they ended up in barrack 65. On 25 May they were both put on transport to Sobibor, where on arrival there on 28 May 1943, Charlotte and Carolina Gompertz immediately were murdered.

Sources include City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Charlotte and Carolona Gompertz, residence card Memlingstraat 7 Amsterdam and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Charlotte and Carolina Gompertz.

All rights reserved