Joseph Dingsdag was a son of Levie Dingsdag and Mietje Theemboom and he was born on 14 October 1905. He was employed as clothes presser; he married in Amsterdam on 18 March 1931 Sientje van West, who was born on 9 January 1906 as a daughter of Jacob van West and Betje Schaap. Joseph and Sientje had one son together, Levie, who was born in Amsterdam on 5 October 1933.
Joseph lived at home with his parents in the 2e Oosterparkstraat 48 ground floor, but after being married in 1931 to Sientje van West, the newlywed couple moved into house in the Christiaan de Weststraat 14 1st floor in Amsterdam-East on 2 April 1931. Thereafter they moved to Camperstraat 40 2nd floor, the Tilanusstraat 65 1st stock and per 21 December 1936 to the Krugerplein 15 1st floor, where since early March 1936 not only his brother Mozes and his family lived, but also other Dingsdag family members.
On 6 August 1937 Joseph and his brother Mozes moved to the Blasiusstraat 120 2nd stock but Joseph already moved to another dwelling at nr. 80 3rd floor on 1 February 1938. On 30 October 1939 he and his family moved again to Lepelstraat 12 2nd floor, where on 27 December 1939 also Joseph’s brother Jonas came to live.
Lepelstraat 12 2nd floor became the last known address for Joseph Dingsdag and his family, as they were summoned for the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz”, the provision of addional work in Germany on 16 July 1942. However, Joseph, Sientje and their son Levie were not registered in Westerbork until 7 November 1942. Deportation of this family probably had been postponed for some reason.
But already three days later, on 10 November 1942 the Joseph Dingsdag family was put on transport to Auschwitz. On arrival there on 13 November 1942, Sientje Dingsdag-van West and her 9 year old son Levie were immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Joseph however was selected for forced labor and had to “work” under barbarian conditions. Not known is were he ended up in Auschwitz and what kind of “work” he had to do. But in the end Joseph Dingsdag managed to survive the Shoah and was able to return to Hollonad in 1945, where in 1950 he remarried the Holocaust-survivor Judith Dotsch (1916-2006), a daughter of Aaron Dotsch and Sara de Rood. Joseph Dingsdag passed away on 6 November 1981 in Amsterdam and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery at Muiderberg.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Joseph Dingsdag, Sientje van West and Judith Dotsch, family registration card of Joseph Dingsdag; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Joseph Dingsdag, Sientje Dingsdag-van West, Levie Dingsdag and Judith Dotsch; residence card Amsterdam Lepelstraat 12; website stenenarchief.nl/graves of Joseph Dingsdag and Judith Dingsdag-Dotsch.