On 27 March 1943, Samuel’s mother Rachel Gans-Gans and his twin-sister Sara Gans were registered in Westerbork. Presumably they were arrested for some offence of the many anti-Jewish regulations from the Germans, why in Westerbork they ended up in the penal barrack 67. On 30 March 1943 mother and daughter were put on transport to Sobibor and on arrival there on 2 April 1942 immediately killed in the gas chamber there.
Samuel, on the other hand, was already taken to Westerbork on 1 October 1942 and deported the next, on 2 October 1942 to Auschwtiz. That transport was the first one via the railroad track from Camp Westerbork and in total 1014 persons were deported. The train stopped at Kozel, a place located ± 80 km west from Auschwitz, where 160 boys and men between 15 and 50 years of age were forced to leave the train, among them also Samuel Gans. They were all deployed as forced labourers in the surrounding labor camps of Auschwitz. However, those, who remained in the train were transported onwards to Auschwitz to be killed there.
Samuel Gans eventually ended up as forced labourer in the "Reichs Autobahnlager “Annaberg” in Upper Silesia in Poland. After the war, it was known that Samuel Gans had not survived the Shoah, but not where, when and under what circumstances he had lost his life. Therefore, on order of the Ministry of Justice, the City of Amsterdam had drawn up a certificate of death for Samuel Gans, in which was established that he died in Schoppinitz on 31 October 1943.
However, in 2015, research was carried out in Poland to victims of among others the labor camp “Reichsautobahnlager Annaberg” in Upper Silesia in Poland where several certificates of death were found, including those of Samuel Gans. This document shows that Eliazer Woudstra died 13 December 1942 in camp Annaberg. On the death certificate is mentioned as cause of death “pulmonary edema” (Lungenodem).
By establishing the date of death of Samuel Gans, the official Dutch date of death and place of 31 March 1943 in Schoppinitz is maintained, a juridical date and place established after the war by the Dutch Department of Justice.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive card of Samuel Gans, family registration card of Meijer Gans;death certificate Samuel Gans from Amsterdam A-reg.90-fol.24–nr.132 dated.13 December 1951; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Samuel Gans, Rachel Gans-Gans and Sara Gans; wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland and Edward Haduch, Kedzierzyn-Kozle (Polen), the death certificate of Samuel Gans from the Peoples Registry (Standesamt) Annaberg.