Hendrika David was a daughter of Isaac David and Elizabeth Velleman. Her parents married in August 1902 and Hendrika was born on 22 July 1903 in Rotterdam. Her elder brother was already born in 1897 but by Royal Decree of 1903 acknowledged and legalized by his parents.
Hendrika married 14 September 1932 Benjamin Barendse, who was born on 30 October 1901 as a son of Isaac Barense and Sophia van Gigh. Hendrika was working those days as a shop-lady. After she was married, she exchanged her parental home, then Paradijslaan 140b, with the Diergaardestraat 47 in Rotterdam, where her husband Benjamin Barendse lived, until the beginning of 1929 as head of the Barendse family with his brothers Abraham, Aron and his sister Belia, who incidentally already had moved elsewhere on 9 January 1929. Hendrika and Benjamin had two children, namely Isaac in 1936 and Elizabeth in 1939.
The move from Rotterdam to Den Haag could have been a result of the bombardment of Rotterdam on 14 May 1940; those days, the Benjamin Barendse family lived at Schieweg 3 in Rotterdam. But not only the Barendse family decide to move then, but also the parents of his wife Hendrika, Isaac David, Elizabeth Velleman and brother Simon. That is how they ended up at Van Speijkstraat 141 in Den Haag.
On 10 April 2015, an article was published in one of the Dutch daily newspapers from which the following quote: “The day after the thirteen-minute German bombardment, Rotterdam started clearing. The army of mainly unemployed people filled in with dump trucks and shovel at great speed what was then the water of the Blaak, the Rotterdamse Schie and the Schiedamsesingel. Hundreds of trucks drove back and forth for 28 weeks. To the Spaanse Polder, the Kralingse Plas, the Noorderhaven and various storage areas around the city. The debris was quickly distributed throughout the Netherlands, because the enormous amount of 5 million cubic meters of debris was too much to collect.”
Her brother Simon was already deported on 31 August 1942 from one of the Jewish Labour Camps in the Northern Netherlands to one of the labour camps in “Mid Europe”, where he eventually lost his life on 31 March 1944.
The other members of the David and Barendse families were carried off from Den Haag to Westerbork on 27 November 1942, from where Isaac and Elizabeth David were put on transport to Auschwitz on 4 December. On arrival there on 7 December 1942 they were immediately killed in the gas chambers there.
Hendrika Barendse-David, her husband Benjamin and both their children Isaac and Elizabeth Barendse were only put on transport to Auschwitz on 29 January 1943. Some notes on the registration card from the Jewish Council Archive of Benjamin Barendse, made on 29 December 1942 read, that there had been some “certificate/testimony” and “that Benjamin had been in hospital and dismissed there; he even might have been deployed in the hospital”. His luggage arrived on 7 January 1943 in barrack 69 and on 22 January 1943 he was provided with food. Altogether, the Barendse family has been deported to Auschwitz only on 29 January 1943 and on arrival there immediately killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Isaac David and Benjamin Barendse; wedding certificate Rotterdam for Isaac David/Elizabeth Velleman and Benjamin Barendse/Hendrika David; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Hendrika Barendse-David, Benjamin Barendse and their children Isaac and Elizabeth Barendse.