Margaretha Cohen was the eldest child of the couple Hartog Cohen from Leeuwarden and Marianne Sitters from Gorinchem. She was born 18 February 1901 in Leiden and married there on 5 June 1923 the 30-year old commercial traveller who was born in Leeuwarden, Levie Velleman, a son of Willem Velleman and Grietje de Jong.
Levie Velleman arrived in Rotterdam on 30 April 1923 from Leeuwarden, where he was born on 15 September 1892, and then lived in the Allard Piersonstraat 22a. After his wedding to Margaretha Cohen on 5 June 1923, she too was registered in Rotterdam per 11 June 1923. Till 30 August they both lived in the Allard Piersonstraat 22a, but moved then to house nr. 21d. On 6 March to house nr. 21a. Their four children, namely Margarita Henriette, Marianna Rosa, Willem Hartog and Eliseba Esther were born there in Rotterdam.
Presumably as a result of the bombardment of Rotterdam in May 1940, the Velleman family moved 16 September 1940 to Amersfoort where they moved in to a house at the Van Lenneplaan 10. On 13 August 1942, all the members of the family received there a call for the so-called “provision of additional work in Germany” (Arbeitseinsatz). Possibly shortly thereafter the two eldest daughters were sent to uncle and aunt Natalie of the Central Israëlitic Orphanage and Transit House, which was established since 18 June 1929 in the Roodenburgstaat 1a in Leiden and where 58 children could be accommodated. It was an orphanage for Jewish children from 2 till 18 years, countrywide, and not only for orphans as there were also children of whom their parents temporarily were unable to take care for their child(ren). The orphanage was managed by director Nathan Italie, who was married to Margaretha Cohen's sister Elisabeth Cohen.
Early October 1942, the Germans organized large-scale raids, where many Dutch Jewish citizens were arrested and carried off to Westerbork. This happened also to the Levie Velleman family: he himself, his wife Margaretha and his two youngest children Willem and Eliseba were taken to Westerbork were they arrived somewhere between 3 and 5 October. They stayed there till 30 October 1942 and then were put on transport to Auschwitz.
The transport of 30 October 1942 with in total 659 deportees was a so-called Kozel transport, which meant that during a stop in Kozel, a place located ±80 km. west from Auschwitz, 200 men between 15 and 50 year forcedly had to leave the train, to be deployed as forced labourers in the surrounding labor camps. Those, who remained in the train were transported onwards to Auschwitz to be killed there.
On arrival in Auschwitz on 2 November 1942, Margaretha Velleman-Cohen and her children Willem Hartog and Eliseba Esther were immediately killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Whether Levie Velleman belonged to the group of 200 men who had “left” the train in Kozel, or that he was selected as forced labourer on arrival in Auschwitz, is not known. Known is however that he had come to a miserable end somewhere in Mid-Europe.
It is therefore that the Ministry of Justice ordered the municipality of Amersfoort after the war, to draw up a certificate of death for Levie Velleman, in which is established that he died in Mid-Europe on 31 March 1944.
The two eldest daughters Margarita Henriette and Marianna Rosa Velleman probably stayed in the Central Israëlitic Orphanage and Transit House in Leiden since mid August 1942. But on 17 March 1943 it came to an end. Police arrived who arrested all inhabitants, children and staff. And so Margarita and Marianna arrived in Westerbork on 19 March 1943, where they were locked in barrack 66, a penal barrack. On 23 March they were deported to Sobibor with another 1248 deportees and on arrival there on 26 March 1943, immediately killed in the gas chambers there.
Sources among others: the City Archive of Rotteram, family registration card of Levie Velleman; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Margaretha Velleman-Cohen, Levie Velleman and Margarita Henriette, Marianna Rosa, Willem Hartog and Eliseba Esther Velleman; website wiewaswie/certificate of death nr. 58 of 24 Jan 1952 made out in Amersfoort for Levie Velleman; wikipedia website Centraal Israëlitisch Wees- en Doorgangshuis; website Joods Weehuis Leiden.