David Sluijs was the first of the two children of Ezechiel Sluijs and Vrouwtje Bierman. He was born on 1 July 1917 in the then still independent municipality of Watergraafsmeer and he was a whitesmith by profession. He married the seamstress Elisabeth de Goede in Amsterdam on 26 March 1941, a daughter of Levie de Goede and Rachel Pais.
David was born at the Nieuweweg 41 in Watergraafsmeer. With his parents he move to Amsterdam, in 1919 to Nieuwe Kerkstraat and in 1925 to Tugelaweg 36 1st stock and in 1929 to nr. 39 3rd floor. Elisabeth de Goede lived in the 2e Jan Steenstraat 108 3rd stock in Amsterdam, moved in September 1938 to Hilversum but returned on 30 July 1940 in Amsterdam and moved in then with the Sluijs family at Tugelaweg 39 3rd floor.
After being married in March 1941, David and Elisabeth moved into living space at Alexanderkade 1 1st floor, located in the opposite of the Mauritskade in Amsterdam-East. On 22 February 1942 they moved into a house in the Retiefstraat 108 3rd floor, where they became the parents of Rachel Vrouwtje Sluijs, who was born there on 9 March 1942. She survived the Shoah.
On the other hand, her mother, Elisabeth de Goede was carried off to Westerbork on 14 October 1942 where she ended up in the sick-bay in barrack 83. Her husband David Sluijs had a so-called “Sperrung” (an exemption from deportation), because of his work as a metal worker with Werkspoor since 18 June 1942. And when Elisabeth arrived in Westerbork, she requested such a “Sperrung” for herself, “because of her husband” but she received a refusal. On 19 October already she was deported to Auschwitz and upon arrival there she was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 22 October 1942.
David Sluijs however arrived only on 9 December 1942 in Westerbork, from where he was deported to Auschwitz with the last transport of 1942. This transport with in total 757 deportees, arrived in Auschwitz, probably the 14th or the 15th of December.
Upon arrival there, David Sluijs has been selected at the “Rampe: (the platform) as a labourer an put to work, in- or outside the camp, but it is unknown where he has ended up and under what conditions and when exactly he has lost his life.
After the war, the Dutch authorities have estahblished then – also based on testiomonials of survivors, repatriates, researches and other informations – that David Sluijs no longer could be alive after 28 February 1943. The Municipality of Amsterdam then was commissioned to draw up a death certificate for David Sluijs, in which has been established that he has died in Auschwitz on 28 February 1943.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Ezechiel Sluijs, archive cards of David Sluijs and Elisabeth de Goede; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of David Sluijs and Elisabeth Sluijs-de Goede; the Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and the certificate of death for David Sluijs nr. 508 from the A-register 59-folio 87 made out in Amsterdam on 30 November 1950.