Abraham Davids, who was born 21 December 1881 in Rotterdam, was the youngest son of Isaac Davids and Catharina Hart. He married there Rebecca Schnitzler on 29 March 1911, who was born 18 June 1883 in Rotterdam as daughter of Samuel Schnitzler and his cousin Sara Schnitzler. The couple had two children, namely Izaak, who was born 1 March 1912 and Samuel on 27 March 1914. Izaak was killed in Auschwitz on 5 December 1942. His brother Samuel, who had a job as shop assistant, survived the war and passed away in 1984.
Abraham was born into a family with in total four children, namely he himself, David, who was born in 1877, Louis in 1874 and Samuel in 1870. His brother Samuel married twice with non-Jewish women and passed in Rotterdam on 21 March 1945. His brother Louis was killed in Sobibor on 20 March 1943, together with his wife Jetje Moscoviter and his brother David passed away on 3 November 1938 in Rotterdam. His first wife Betje Godschalk died there already on 19 September 1929 and his 2nd non-Jewish spouse, who had been working as a housekeeper with the family since 1926 and whom he married in 1931, died on 1 January 1951 in Rotterdam.
Rebecca Schnitzler was born into a large family too with in total seven children, They were Abraham (26 Januari 1872), David (3 December 1873), Keetje (27 Juni 1877), Meijer (11 Juli 1877), Anna (8 April 1881), Maria (14 Januari 1885) and Rebecca herself. Her parents, Samuel and Sara Schnitzler, were cousins 1st degree, married in Rotterdam on 11 November 1866 and have died respectively in 1913 and 1918. Rebecca’s brother Meijer passed away on 19 February 1938 in Rotterdam. His wife Sophia Schnitzler-Cohen died already on 2 March 1930.
Of Maria Schnitzler, who worked as a factory worker, is known that she has given birth to a daughter Sara Schnitzler on 24 February 1904. Sara Schnitzler later lived in Den Haag and was married to Eduard Maas and after she divorced him she married Jacob van Klaveren from whom she divorced too, on 2 December 1940. Then she married the third time on 25 February 1942 in Den Haag Hubert Johan Hofkes from Maastricht.
When Abraham Davids was not yet married to Rebecca Schnitzler, he worked as a furrier. Afterwards he established himself as a shopkeeper in household items, lived in 1911 with his wife in the Zomerhofstraat 63b and later moved again to Benthuizerstraat 79b. Before they moved into a house in the 1e Pijnackerstraat 55a in Rotterdam on 21 January 1938, they have moved six times between 1925 till 1937, of which at four different house numbers in the Zwart Janstraat in the Oude Noorden district. Still one last move followed: at the time of the compulsory registration of all Jews in the Netherlands in 1941, their address was Scheveningsestraat 81 in the Agniese neighbourhood of Rotterdam.
Izaak Davids, Abraham’s and Rebecca’s son, was taken to concentration camp Vught on 22 April 1943 and from there put to work in the “Aussenkommando Moerdijk”, a satellite camp of Vught. Back in Vught on 11 September 1943, he was sent to Westerbork the 12th and deported to Auschwitz on 14 September. On arrival there on 17 September he was selected for slave labor again. Where he has been employed then is unknown but according to his certificate of death nr. 1439 of 10 August 1951, drawn up by the City of Rotterdam on order of the Ministry of Justice, Izaak Davids eventually lost his life on 5 December 1943 in Auschwitz (or in the surroundings of the camp).
However, Abraham Davids and his wife Rebecca Schnitzler were already taken early October 1942; the first transport from Loods 24 to Westerbork on behalf of the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz” (provision of additional work in Germany), already departed in the night of 30/31 July 1942. During the raid on the night of 8/9 October 1942, Jewish citizens of Rotterdam upward of the age of 60 were taken from their homes. They got ten minutes to pack, were taken to Loods 24 by bus and tram and carried off from there to camp Westerbork and deported from there to the extermination camps. No doubt, Abraham and Rebecca Davids were victims of this raid. Already on 12 October they were deported to Auschwitz in a transport with another 1709 deportees and on arrival there on 15 October 1942 immediately killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Abraham Davids, Isaac Davids and Samuel Schnitzler, the wedding certificate Davids/Schnitzler 1880e.5689-fol.c62v; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Abraham Davids, Rebecca Davids-Schnitzler and Izaak Davids; website ITS Arolson/Izaak Davids; website Joods Erfgoed Rotterdam; Wikipedia website Loods 24 and the Wikipedia listing of jondentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl.