Catharina Davids was a daughter of David Davids and Betje Godschalk. She was born on 23 April 1911 in Rotterdam as the twin-sister of Meindert Davids. She married 25 March 1936 in Rotterdam Machiel Stad, born there on 3 October 1909, shopkeeper and son of Salomon Stad and Marian van Handel. The Stad-Davids couple had one son, who was born on 8 April 1942 and has been named Johnny. However, he passed away in Rotterdam already 5 months later on 16 September 1942. Catharina’s husband Machiel Stad had another four siblings, two of them survived the Holocaust but the other two, namely Rosetta and Joël; they were killed in the Shoah with their families.
Catharina, usually called Kitty, was born into a family with four children, namely Isaac in 1901, Meindert in 1903, who however died already after one month, Catherina self and again a Meindert in 1911, the twin-brother of Kitty. Her father became widowed in 1926 of Betje Godschalk but remarried on 20 May 1931 Maria Catharina de Rijke from Breskens, who already in September 1926 as a housekeeper came into the house of David Davids. She was previously married to Adrianus Jacobus Weijens but from whom she was divorced on 21 July 1930.
After Catharina and Machiel were married in 1936, they moved into a house at Beukelsweg 31a in Rotterdam, in the district “Het Nieuwe Westen”(the New West). After the death of their 5-month-old son Johnny on 16 September 1942, Machiel and Catharina has made attempts to go into hiding, which unfortunately failed. They were arrested and carried off to Westerbork on 13 February 1943. It was not possible to deduce from the registration card of Catharina Stad from the archive of the Jewish Council, whether she, like her husband Machiel, was locked up in the penal barrack 66, but that they indeed were both put on transport on a so-called “penal transport” to Sobibor on 10 March 1943 and on arrival there on 13 March 1943, they were immediately murdered in the gas chambers there.
Sources including the Rotterdam City Archives, family registration cards of of Salomon Stad, David Davids and Machiel Stad; Registration card of the Rotterdam Population Register for Maria Catharina de Rijke; the certificate of divorce from the Municipality of Breskens of Maria Catharina de Rijke and A.J.C. Weijens; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Catharina Stad-Davids and Machiel Stad and the death certificates of Salomon Stad from The Hague and Judith Stad and Simon Stad from Rotterdam.