Herman Samuel Cohen, the sixth child of Hartog Cohen and Marianne Sitters, was born on 26 June 1913 in Leiden and became a teacher for “education at independant schools”. Except his school diploma of the 5-year HBS, he succeeded too in obtaining his headmasters certificate. He arrived from Leiden in Amsterdam in 1935, where he shortly stayed at Boerhaaveplein, went back that same year to Leiden to leave shortly thereafter to Apeldoorn, where he worked more than a year at Pedagogium Achisomog (part of the Central Israëlitic Mental Hospital) at Zutphensestraat 78. Early November 1936 he returned to Amsterdam, where he has been appointed as a religious teacher at the Dutch Israëlitic Boys Orphanage, which was located at Amstel 21.
Herman will also meet his future wife in Amsterdam, Elsa Katteburg, born on 26 June 1911 in Rotterdam as a daughter of Hartog Kattenburg and Hendrica Kattenburg. She was educated as a shorthand typist and on 2 September she left Rotterdam for the Roodenburgstraat 1a in Leiden, where the Central Israëlitic Orphanage and Transferhouse is located, managed by director Nathan Italie. He was married to Elisabeth Cohen, a sister of Elsa’s future husband Herman. On 19 February Elsa left Leiden for Amsterdam where she then lived in the Van Breestraat 76,
Herman Samuel Cohen and Elsa Kattenburg got married in Amsterdam on 5 January 1938 and then moved into their own home in the Kromme Mijdrechtstraat 54 2nd floor in Amsterdam-South on 6 January 1938. From this marriage, no children were born.
During the period between 6 January 1938 and 30 November 1942, Herman and Elsa have moved several times and sometimes they stayed a rather short time at some of those addresses. So in February 1939 they moved from Kromme Mijdrechtstraat to Daniel Willinkplein 39, then on 29 May 1940 to the Dintelstraat 54 parterre, where Herman’s mother Marianne Cohen-Sitters and his sister Ester lived. After two months, in July 1940, they arrived in the Niersstraat 17 parterre and in Sepember of that year in the Roerstraat 89, wheren in the end they have lived for two years. On 30 November 1942 their last removal followed to the Retiefstaat 18 3rd floor in the Transvaal district of Amsterdam-East. There they have lived till their deportation in 1944.
In 1943, from 11 April till 4 June, Herman’s unmarried brother Izak Hartog Cohen lived in whith them in the Retiefstaat. Izak Hartog was administrator at De Bergstichting in Laren, which had been already dismanteled by the Germans in 1942. Children and staff were accomodated then at Rapenburg 92-96 in Amsterdam. Director Reitsma characterized the institution then as a so-called “mischlingheim” (a hybrid home), where the children were not thoroughbred Jewish. And because the resisents of this home were possibly “aryan”, the Sicherheitsdienst took care that during a raid and house search no residents and staff were taken. This has created time for people to go into hiding.
Whether Herman and Elsa and his brother Izak have made plans to go into hiding or not, with mother Marianne Sitters and sister Ester, is not quite clear but it is striking that on 8 August 1944 Herman and Elsa were arrested and carried off to Westerbork, where they were locked up in the penal barrack 67, and one week later, Izak Hartog Cohen, his sister Ester and his mother Marianne Sitters followed too: on 14 August 1944 they also ended up in the penal barrack 67 of Westerbork.
On 3 September 1944 they were deported as penal cases with a so-called penal transport to Auschwitz, where on arrival on 6 September 1944 only Marianne Cohen Sitters was killed immediately in the gas chamber of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Of the others, Ester Cohen lost her life on 8 March 1945 in concentration camp Libau (a sub camp of Gross Rosen); Izak Hartog Cohen eventually lost his life somewhere in Mid Europe on 15 March 1945; Herman Samuel Cohen on 11 February 1945 in the Extern Command Ebensee (concentration camp) and his wife Elsa Cohen-Kattenburg was killed in Auschwitz on 31 October 1944.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Herman Samuel Cohen, archive cards of Herman Samuel Cohen, Elsa Kattenburg and Izal Hartog Cohen; the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration card of Hartog Kattenburg and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Herman Samuel Cohen and Elsa Cohen-Kattenburg.