Joseph van Engers, the third of the seven children of Nathan Jacob van Engers and Sophia Sanders, was born in Rotterdam on 26 October 1909. He was out of work for a long time but from 1930 he tried to earn a living as a dealer in irregular goods.
Just like his siblings, Joseph lived at home with his parents and left with them on 23 May 1929 for Nijmegen. There he resided with the other members of the family in the Ruysdaelstraat 68, till they all returned to Rotterdam on 31 January 1930 and came to live at the Prins Hendrikkade 55a.
Joseph was still unmarried but decided on 15 August 1935 to find living spaces for his own and moved to Oostmolenstraat 31a, near the river Nieuwe Maas in Rotterdam. After some more relocations, he came to live per 30 October 1937 at the Goudscherijweg 73a in the Rubroek district of Rotterdam. But since the mandatory registration of the Jews in the Netherlands up from January 1941, Joseph van Engers – now a musician - was registered in Rotterdam by the Jewish Council as living at Noordsingel 135a.
On 27 February 1943, Joseph van Engers was arrested and via Loods 24 carried off to Westerbork, where he had to stay in barrack 69. On 2 March 1943, he was deported with the first transport Westerbork-Sobibor, still in passenger carriages, but upon arrival there on 5 March 1943, he was immediately killed in the gas chambers.
Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Nathan Jacob van Engers and Joseph van Engers; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Joseph van Engers and the wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl.