Fogeltje van Gelder was a daughter of Daniël van Gelder and Judikje Troostwijk. She was the eldest of the two children in that family and was born on 29 September 1911 in Groningen. Later she had another brother, Samuel, who was born there on 14 February 1913.
Fogeltje’s father was born in Assen and her mother in Leeuwarden. But after they were married in Assen in 1910, they moved to Groningen, where her father found work as a warehouseman. On 20 June 1913, a few monts after the birth of her brother Samuel, the family moved back to Assen again, where they came to live at Steendijk 39.
Samuel Rubens, whom Fogeltje would marry on 6 November 1935, was born on 17 March 1908 in Brussels as the son of the rag sorter and dealer of irregular goods, Michel Rubens and his first wife Julie Kadisch from Zürich. Julie was a daughter of Gustave Kadisch and Jeanne Grünebaum, who was previously married to César François Pardoen, whom she has divorced in 1905 in Laeken (B).
Whether Julie Kadish also has been divorced from Michael Rubens, or that she might have been passed away, is unknown. Known is however that Michel Rubens (presumably before 1917) remarried Sarah Huijsman, who was born on 5 April 1878 in Liege in Belgium; date and place of marriage is unknown.
Samuel left Rotterdam with his father Michel and stepmother Sarah Huijsman on 3 November 1917, where they stayed at Hoogte Kadijk 16 and thereafter again for nine months at Rapenburg 29 groundfloor in Amsterdam, at Pressers. In the end of January 1919 they left again for Brussels.
From her parental domicile at Steendijk 39 in Assen, Fogeltje van Gelder left for Den Haag in 1935 and arrived there on 16 September. From September to December 1935 Samuel as well Fogeltje stayed in the Court City; Samuel as a dealer in fancy articles, living in with his uncle in the Tullinghstraat 17 and Fogeltje, working as a maid, lived in there too.
Before this, Samuel and Fogeltje certainly must have stayed in Groningen, as on 30 December 1933, their first son Daniël was born there. Only on 6 November 1935 Fogeltje van Gelder and Samuel Rubens got married (place of marriage unknown), and on 2 December 1935 they left for Deventer, where they came to live in the Grote Overstraat 73. Their 2nd child Michel was born there on 2 March 1936.
Research by a user of this website showed that Samuel Rubens was called up in the end of August for deployment in the Jewish Labour camp Lievelde near Lichtevoorde. However, the Germans liquidated on 2 and 3 October 1942 all Jewish Labour camps in the Netherlands and all forced labourers were sent to Westerbork, on foot or by train. Those 10.000 Jewish forced labourers, together with the many arrested Jewish victims of the large-scaled raids in among others Amsterdam, caused chaotic scenes in Westerbork.
At the same time, "in the context of so-called family reunification", women and children were taken from their homes to Westerbork early October 1942 too. Samuel's wife and children also ended up in Westerbork around 3 October 1942, from where they, as a family, were deported to the East on 26 October. That transport arrived a few days later in Auschwitz, where on 29 October 1942 Fogeltje Rubens-Van Gelder and her two sons Daniël and Michel were immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz Birkenau.
On the other hand, Samuel Rubens was selected then for performing forced labor. It is unknown where, or in which labor-command he ended up, in- or outside the camp, nor his exact date of death is known. Therefore the Dutch Authorities after the war have established – also based on testiomonies of survivors, research and other informations – that Samuel van Gelder no longer could be alive after 28 February 1943. The Ministry of Justice then commissioned the Municipality of Deventer to draw up a certificate of death for Samuel Rubens, in which has been established that, as a missing person, he has died in the vicinity of Auschwitz on 28 February 1943.
Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Michel Rubens; the City Archive of Amsterdam, copied volumes OGDA00208000047/Michel Rubens-period 1930; the Archive of Drenthe/population registry Assen volume 697 with Fogeltje van Gelder; Municipal Archive of Den Haag, family registration cards of Samuel Rubens and Fogeltje van Gelder; website Open Archieven.nl; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Samuel Rubens, Fogeltje van Gelder, Daniël and Michel Rubens; Wikpedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl; certificates of death made out in Deventer on 27 July 1927, nr. 474 and 475 for Daniël and Michel Rubens, nr. 472 for Fogeltje Rubens-van Gelder and nr. 476 for Samuel Rubens and information/addition of a visitor of the website.