Isidore Ephraim was a son of Salomon Jacques Ephraim and Betje Wijnschenk. He was born in Amsterdam on 23 November 1901 and was a diamond polisher by profession. On 12 February 1924 he married in Borgerhout (B) Lea Vos, a daughter of Andries Vos and Aaltje Bonn and had with her two children, namely Salomon Jacques and Andries.
After their wedding, up from June 1924 Isidore and his wife Lea lived in Antwerp, Borgerhout and Deurne. In Antwerp their first born son Salomon Jacques was born on 20 July 1924 and in Borgerhout their second son Andries followed on 3 April 1936. The family remained living till July 1931 in Deurne but returned on 31 July in Amsterdam, where they moved into a house at Tugelaweg 33 2nd floor.
On 16 July 1942, Salomon Jacque and Andries were called-up for the so-called “provision of additional work in Germany”- the “Arbeitseinsatz” and they reported in Camp Westerbork. On 21 July 1942, they were both deported with the 3rd transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz where a few days later they were put to work as forced labourers upon arrival in Auschwitz. Both their date of death has been established after the war by the Dutch Ministry of Justice as on 30 September 1942 in Auschwitz.
Not much later, in early October 1942, large-scale raids were held in which thousands of Jews were arrested and carried off to Westerbork. Also Isidore Ephraim and his wife Lea Vos fell victim to those raids. Because Germans simutaneously liquidated all Jewish labor camps in the Northern Netherlands and brought the Jewish forced labourers to Westerbork too, while the camp was not designed for so many people, it was a great chaos there.
It took until 6 November until Isidore Ephraim and his wife Lea Vos were deported to Auschwitz. Upon arrival there on 9 November 1942, Lea Vos was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Isidore Ephraim, on the other hand, was selected on arrival to be deployed as a forced laborer, but it is not known where he ended up at that time.
It is known that Isidore arrived in the Dachau concentration camp at some point, where he was given the prisoner number 120269. On 3 May 1950, a death certificate was drawn up in the Sonderstandesambt Arolson, Kreis Waldeck, (Special Registry Office of the Arolson Civil Registry in the Waldeck district) stating that Isidore Ephraim as “Insasse” (resident) of Dachau has been deceased there on 19 January 1945.
Sources include the City Archive of Amstrdam, family registration card of Isidore Ephraim, archive cards of Isidore Ephraim, Lea Vos, Salomon Jacques Ephraim and Andries Ephraim; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Isidore Ephraim, Lea Vos, Salomon Jacques Ephraim and Andries Ephraim; website ITS Arolson, certificate of death for Isidore Ephraim.