Salomon Charmatz, also called Max, was born on 20 December 1894 in Brzeżany, Galicia - at the time belonging to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, after 1919 to Poland and after 1945 attached to the Ukrainian SSR, now Ukraine. He was a son of Isak Charmatz and Marjem Reisie Karpin, born out of wedlock, but legitimized on 28 March 1899. He was the fourth in a family of five children, which left Brzezany with their parents for Berlin around 1900. Salomon’s siblings all survived the Holocaust; they have passed away in Australia, Brazil, France, Palestine and Israël.
Ilse Jacobson was born on 4 January1905 in Kolberg, Holkestraße 14 - at the time this town on the coast of the Baltic sea was German (Pomerania), after the Second World War it became Polish and was renamed Kołobrzeg. She was a daughter of Paul Jacobson and Hella Cohn who were married in 1903 Breslau. Ilse had another sister and brother. About the beginning of the First World War, the Jacobson family moved to Berlin; Ilse’s siblings survived the Holocaust and have passed away in Israël.
Salomon and Ilse had their civil marriage on 12 April 1927 in Berlin. After their marriage they lived from 1927 till 1934 in Finow, a town at 60 km. from Berlin, where Salomon was a 'Kaufmänischer Angestellter' (commercial employee) at the “Hirsch Kupfer-Messingwerke A.G.” in Finow. In 1934 they settled in Berlin and came to Amsterdam in 1936 where they lived at Niersstraat 41 2nd floor in the River District of Amsterdam and on 11 March 1936 they moved to Zuider Amstellaan 221 3rd floor.
Salomon, or Max, worked as a 'calculator specialist' for 'Infinas' (Industrial and Financial Association) at Spuistraat 198 in Amsterdam, probably on behalf of the 'Hirsch Kupfer-Messingwerke A.G.'. In 1940 Infinas started having financial problems, no dividend was paid to its shareholders. In 1941 Max got a job somewhere as 'buyer and sorter of furniture'.
Salomon and Ilse had the connections and the financial means to 'get out'. They travelled to Palestine in 1939 but decided to return to Amsterdam at the time of the German-Soviet invasion of Poland. A possible reason: In the NIOD archives the name of Salomon Charmatz is found on a list of documents “concerning the exemption from deportation of Jews who fought at the front, 1942". He may have trusted that his militairy record would get him through.
At the end of 1942 Salomon/Max and his wife Ilse went into hiding at the house of a Dutch family, where they were arrested on 23 March 1944, after betrayal of their address by the wife of the person that had arranged the hiding address. They were first brought to The Hague and imprisoned in the so-called “Oranjehotel” and from there to Camp Westerbork: Salomon on 28 March 1944, Ilse on 01 April 1944. In Westerbork they were locked up in barrack 67, the detention barrack: Going into hiding was considered a 'criminal offense' by the Germans, and their deportation from Westerbork to Auschwitz on 05 April 1944 was a so-called penal-transport, which arrived in Auschwitz on 7/8 April 1944.
Both are 'missing persons'. The exact date of death, nor what has happened to them there or how they have lost their lives there is known. Their official date of their death was determined by the Dutch Red Cross based on the following considerations: They were both under 51 years of age on arrival and therefore passed the first selection. They were kept in quarantine for 8 days. The average period arrivals stayed alive was 4 to 5 months. They must have died between 15-04-1944 and 31-08-1944. The last possible date of death is taken as the date of death.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Salomon Charmatz, archive cards of Salomon Charmatz and Ilse Jacobson and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Salomon Charmatz and Ilse Charmatz Jacobson.
Text of this biography was written by a researcher of the Charmatz/Jacboson family, edited by the editors of Joods Monument.