Suzanna de Haan was the second daughter of Asser de Haan and Rosa Vos. Both her parents were born in Amsterdam, but Suzanna was born in Antwerp on 13 July 1925 and lived there till 1941. Her father started working as diamond worker and as a diamond merchant he had his own business in Antwerp. Suzanna was also working as a diamond worker. She had an older sister Gysina , usually called Tina and a younger sister Evelina.
On 24 March 1941 the De Haan family was unsubscribed from Antwerp to Plantage Kerklaan 14 1st floor in Amsterdam, were they were officially registered on 3 April. Suzanna, Gysina, Evelina and their parents Asser de Haan and Rosa Vos, lived shortly at Plantage Kerklaan with Jacob Salomon Vos, a brother of their mother. He lived there with his sisters Clara and Rachel Vos. Two weeks later the entire family De Haan moved to Rijnstraat 154 2nd floor in Amsterdam-South.
On 20 June 1943, all members of the De Haan family were arrested during the big raid, which was secretly prepared by the Germans, and carried off to Westerbork. Her father ended up there in barrack 68 and she herself and the others in barrack 65. Suzanna’s father Asser de Haan as a diamond merchant was already previously exempted from deportation and tried to achieve the same in Westerbork.
These attempts resulted in negotiations with Puttkammer and in correspondence and negotiations with the “Rijksbureau voor Diamant”, (State Office for Diamonds) and whereby Suzanna de Haan and also her sister Gysina have been discharged from Westerbork on 17 July 1943. They then left for Amsterdam and went to Smitstraat 36 in the Transvaal district of Amsterdam East, where their uncle Jacob de Haan lived with his family. Further archival records show that they were back in Westerbork again on 15 December 1943 and then stayed in barrack 68.
In Camp Westerbork, Suzanna met Jacob David Noach, who was born in Zutphen on 8 April 1919 and who ended up in Westerbork from a liquidated Jewish labor camp already in October 1942. He managed to get a job there with the Jewish Order Service (the OD), and stayed there in barrack 22, which was known as “the barracks”. On 19 July 1944, Suzanna de Haan and Jacob David Noach married in Camp Westerbork and were eventually liberated in Westerbork on 12 April 1945. After the war they emigrated to America but the marriage did not last there.
Sources includt the Felix Archive of Antwerp, dossier of foreigners from Antwerp no. 168681 for Asser de Haan; the City Archvive of Amsterdam, archive card of Suzanna de Haan; residence card of Smitstraat 36 2nd floor in Amsterdam; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Asser de Haan, Suzanna de Haan and Jacob David Noach and the website Jacob & Suzanna Noach – Bevrijdingsportretten (Dutch only).