Szymon Gutter was a son of Salomon Gutter and Matel Bronner. He was born in Chrzanow in Poland on 27 October 1908 and he was a tailor by profession. On 21 November 1933 he married Eva Vos in Amsterdam, a daughter of Isaäc Vos and Mietje Visser. She was born in Amsterdam on 17 April 1904 and worked as a garment seamstress. The couple had two children, namely Salomon in 1937 and Mietje in 1940.
Szymon Gutter arrived from Poland in Amsterdam on 28 February 1933 and lived then in “House Gerbrand” at the Gallileiplantsoen in Amsterdam-East. After being married to Eva Vos in November 1933, both moved to the Johan Keplerstraat 10 where they lived in with “Koster”. After another 5 lodgings at other addresses in the city, they moved into a house in the Andreas Bonnstraat 13 2nd floor on 24 May 1937, where two months later their first child was born.
The entire Gutter-family, which has been registered with the Jewish Council as “Polish”, was deported already with the first transport on 15 July 1942 from Westerbork to Auschwitz. Upon arrival there, the 39-year old Eva Gutter-Vos and both her children Salomon, who was still 4 years old and the 2-year old Mietje were immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Meantime, Szymon Gutter was selected to perform “labor” and was put to work in the camp. The conditions there were inhumane and from two sources, which are mentioned in the website “Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau” , the Memor book of Silesia and the “Sterbebücher”(death registers) of Auschwitz, show that Szymon Gutter has been murdered already in “KL Auschwitz” on 3 September 1942.
After the war, when the above was not yet known, it was established by the Dutch authorities on the basis of survivors' testimonies that Szymon Gutter could no longer be alive after 30 September 1942. The Municipality of Amsterdam was then instructed to draw up a death certificate in which it was established that Szymon Gutter officially had died on 30 September 1942 in Auschwitz.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card and archive card of Szymon Gutter, archive card of Eva Vos; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Szymon Gutter, Eva Gutter-Vos, Salomon and Mietje Gutter; death certificate for Szymon Gutter from the A-register 41-folio 23 verso, nr. 132 dated 6 July 1950 made out by the Municipality of Amsterdam.