Kaatje David was a daughter of Wolf David and Antonetta Andriessen. She was born in Rotterdam on 20 July 1908 and had four elder sisters, namely Hendrika, Roosje, Mietje and Elizabeth. Her sisters and their families were all killed during the Holocaust, just as her parents.
Kaatje was married on 13 August 1924 in Rotterdam to Joël Jacobs, born in Antwerp in 1901 as a son of Jacques Jacobs and Françoise Stad. It is not known whether there were children born in this wedlock. However, the marriage did not last, as a note on the side of the certificate of marriage, executed by the registrar of the registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths in Anderecht (Belgium) on 12 August 1931, was passed by the said official by virtue of a judgment by the Court of the First Instance in Brussels of 17 December 1930, which pronounced the dissolution of the marriage mentioned in the adjacent deed. Of Joël Jacobs is further nothing known.
On 4 March 1943, Kaatje David arrived in Amsterdam and went living in with Meijer Waterman, who lived there in the Roerstraat 30 parterre in Amsterdam-South. On 22 June 1932 Kaatje married him in Amsterdam; he was born there on 26 July 1904 as a son of Hartog Waterman and Heintje Granaat. On 19 November 1933, their daughter Netty was born. Meijer Waterman had another brother Jonas and a sister Betsie, who both have survived the war.
More than two years later, on 2 January 1935 they move to Rotterdam where they came living at Meent 13a, thereafter in March 1935 to Jonker Fransstraat 116b and on 7 June 1938 to Hofdijk 29b. But on 22 May 1940, after the bombardment on Rotterdam, Meijer and his wife and daughter were obliged to evacuate to Amsterdam. For a start they found living space with the parents of Meijer, Hartog Waterman and Heintje Granaat in the Amstelstraat 19 2nd stock. On 3 September they moved to Sarphatipark 71 parterre and in March 1941 to house nr. 51 1st floor and per 7 July 1941 to nr. 4 1st floor.
By order of the occupier, the name of this park had to be changed; streets, squares, and parks could no longer be named after Jews; from September 1941 the Sarphatipark was renamed as Bollandpark.
Soon after the start of the deportations to Auschwitz on 15 July 1942, Meijer Waterman and his wife Kaatje David must have received a call for the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz” in Germany and most likely, both have responded to the call. Before that, Meijer en Kaatje must have arranged already that their daughter Netty was accommodated again with her grandparents Hartog and Heintje Waterman at Amstelstraat 19 2nd floor. Apparently they weren’t afraid to work hard in the labour camps in the East, but for their 9-year old daughter Netty it seemed not really “the place to be”.
After arriving in camp Westerbork, the waiting began for deportation to the “labor camps” and it soon revealed that there was little space in the barracks and no privacy at all. The arrival there must have been an unreal sensation for Meijer and Kaatje. On 10 August 1942 they were both deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz with more than 550 other deportees and they arrived in Auschwitz about 2 days later, on 11/12 August 1942.
Upon arrival in Auschwitz, both were selected to be deployed as forced labourers. The circumstances in the camp were inhumane and many deportees succumbed as a result of hardships, diseases or were still killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau at some point. It is not known when exactly, where and under what circumstances Meijer Waterman and his wife Kaatje David have lost their lives there.
It was therefore, that after the war, the Dutch Ministry of Justice ordered the Municipality of Amsterdam to draw up certificates of death for Meijer Waterman and Kaatje Waterman-David, in which has been established that they have died in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942.
Sources including the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Meijer Waterman, Hartog Waterman and Kaatje David and the family registration card of Meijer Waterman and the residence card of Roerstraat 30 Amsterdam; the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration card of Meijer Waterman; the wedding certificate of Kaatje Waterman and Joël Jacobs; website Traces of War/Kamp Westerbork; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Meijer Waterman and Kaatje Waterman-David and the certificate of death nr. 82 dated 11 Augusty 1950 from the A-register 46-folio 15 verso, made out in Amsterdam for Meijer Waterman and death certificate nr. 313 dated 4 August 1950 from the A-register 44-folio 54 for Kaatje David.