On 19 May 1895 Sophie Henriques de la Fuente was born as the 4th child of Jacob Henriques de la Fuente and Benvenida Engers. At her age of 16, she became an apprentice at the ANDB, to be trained as a rose-diamond cutter. Also her father Jacob, brothers Emanuel, Hijman and David Henriques de la Fuente were employed in the diamond industry. Her apprenticeship started in June 1911 and ended in April 1913, after which she could be formally admitted as a member of the Almgemende Nederlandse Diamantbewerkers Bond (the Dutch Trade Union for Diamond Workers) in branch no. 7 (rose diamond cutters).
Sophie lived with her parents and siblings in the Gerard Doustraat 184 1st floor in Amsterdam, from where she got married on 14 April 1921 to the 29-year old Nathan van Delft, a son of Levie van Delft and Hendrina van der Ziel. Nathan was born on 20 March 1892 and he was employed as a postman with the Post-Telegraph and Telephone company (PTT). Nathan and Sophie had three children, namely Hendrina in 1922, Jacob in 1923 and Helena Benvenida in 1928.
One week after he got married to Sophie, Nathan van Delft moved in with his in-laws at Gerard Doustraat 184 1st stock, but in the autumn of 1926, Nathan and Sophie moved to the Govert Flinckstraat 263 ground floor and Nathan’s father-in-law, Jacob Henriques de la Fuente, widowed on 4 February 1924, moved with them. Not long afterwards, in March 1927 Jacob was taken in permanently into the family of Sophie’s brother Leonard Henriques de la Fuente, who was married in 1925 to Hendrika de Vries. Nathan van Delft and his wife Sophie then moved from Govert Flinckstraat to Lekstraat 20 1st floor in the River district of Amsterdam-South.
The eldest daughter Hendrina, a seamstress by profession, married on 1 April 1942 the cabinet maker Abraham Cohen; he was born on 17 April 1919 in Amsterdam as a son of Jacob Cohen and Sientje Tokkie. On 17 July 1942 they responded to the call for the provision of additional work under police surveillance in Germany, the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz”, and on 19 July, in the middle of the night, carried off in the 02.16 h train from Amsterdam Central Station to Westerbork and subsequently deported to Auschwitz on 21 July. There, in the end – as established by the Dutch Authorities after the war - they died in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942.
Their son Jacob was already 19 years old. According to a note on his registration card of the Jewish Council, he would also have been deported to Auschwitz on 21 July 1942. However, his name does not appear at the transport lists available around that date. Based on his official date of death of 8 October 1942 in Auschwitz, he might have been arrested during the raids at the beginning October 1942 and carried off to Westerbork, together with his parents and younger sister and then deported to Auschwitz too on 5 October 1942. That transport with Nathan, Sophie, and Helena Benvenida and presumably also Jacob van Delft, arrived there on 8 October 1942.
Upon arrival in Auschwitz, Nathan van Delft was selected as a forced labourer. Nor the place he ended up, nor the kind of “work” he had to do, nor the exact date of his death is known. After the war, the Dutch Authorities have established, also based on testimonials of survivors, that Nathan van Delft no longer could be alive after 31 August 1943. The Municipality of Amsterdam then was commissioned to draw up a death certificate for him, which states that he has died in Mid Europe on 31 August 1943.
However, Sophie van Delft-Henriques de la Fuente, her daughter Helena Benvenida and her son Jacob van Delft were immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau upon arrival there on 8 October 1943.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Levie van Delft, Nathan van Delft and Jacob Henriques de la Fuente, archive cards of Nathan van Delft, Sophie Henriques de la Fuente, Jacob and Helena Benvenida van Delft, Hendrina van Delft and Abraham Cohen; Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl; Amsterdam certificates of death, for Nathan van Delft nr. 404 of 20 Dec1951 from register A90-fol. 69, for Hendrina Cohen-van Delft, nr. 402 of 18 Aug 1950 from register A46-fol.69, for Abraham Cohen nr. 261 of 20 Jul 1950 from register A43-fol.45v, for Jacob van Delft nr. 475 of 20 Jul 1950 uit register A42-fol.81v.