Mietje Rodrigues Parreira was a daughter of Abraham Rodrigues Parreira and Jetje Brandon. She was the eldest of six children and was born on 30 September 1898 in Amsterdam. Her siblings were Ester, Hendrika, Judith, Aäron and Benvenida. Her father Abraham passed away in December 1940 in Amsterdam but her mother Jetje, her sibs and their families were all murdered during the Shoah. Only one nephew from the family, the son of Aäron, survived the Holocaust.
Mietje was a seamstress by trade. She still lived at home with her parents in the Valckenierstraat 57 1st floor in Amsterdam, from where she married on 25 May 1921 Louis de Zwarte. From this wedlock, no children were born. Louis de Zwarte was born in Amsterdam on 13 October 1896 as a son of Meijer de Zwarte and Schoontje Appelboom, who then lived at Nieuwe Prinsengracht 110. Per 27 May 1921 Louis and Mietje moved into a house at Oude Schans 60; one year later they moved to Weesperstraat 34 but on 30 June 1923 Louis and Mietje left for Antwerp.
As a 14-year old boy, Louis de Zwarte got employed with the ANDB, the Algemene Nederlandse Diamantbewerkers Bond (the diamond workers trade union) as an “errand boy diamond workers personel” and on 30 April 1911 he was admitted as an apprentice diamond worker in section V, rose diamond polishing. Louis had several tutors, among others in the workshops of Coster, Bottenheim and Van Abbe. But on 8 December 1916, he failed the test rose diamond polishing and him was allowed to switch to section II, brilliant polishing.
On 30 June 1923 Louis and his wife Mietje left for Antwerp, where they came to live at Brederodestraat 118 but two months later they moved to Boomgaardstraat 199. The ANDB had provided him of a Certificate for Antwerp on 19 June 1923, but Louis was not successful in Antwerp and ad some point he was unemployed and left Antwerpe again for Amsterdam. Per 23 June 1924, they were registered again there, where Louis started to work as a greengrocers and Mietje again as a dressmaker.
When they returned in Amsterdam, they ended up then at Nieuwe Kerkstraat 61 1st floor with the brother-in-law of Louis, Joseph Naarden, who was married to his aunt Sientje de Zwarte. Shortly thereafter, on 13 July 1924, they lived in with Mietje’s parents, Abraham Rodrigues Parreira and Jetje Brandon at Valckenierstraat 57 1st floor. In the years that followed, seven more relocations followed until they arrived on 10 May 1937 at the Christiaan de Wetstraat 20 2nd floor in Amsteram-East.
During the major raids at the beginning of October 1942, Louis de Zwarte and his wife Mietje Rodrigues Parreira were arrested and carried off to Westerbork. At the same time, also the Jewish labour camps in the Northern Netherlands were liquidated by the Germans, so with the arrival of all the victims of the raids in Amsterdam and the Jewish forced labourers from the labour camps, Westerbork became quite chaotic.
It was somewhere between 3 and 5 October 1942 that Louis and Mietje were brought in Westerbork and they were put on transport to Auschwitz on 9 October 1942. Upon arrival there on 12 October Mietje de Zwarte-Rodrigues Parreira was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. At the other hand, Louis de Zwarte was selected to perform forced labor in Auschwitz. Not known is where he ended up or in which “Command” he had to “work” and what “kind of work” it was, nor his exact date of death was known. Known however is that the conditions in Auschwitz were harsh and inhumane.
Dutch Authorities after the war have established then, also based on testimonials of survivors and research, that Louis de Zwarte no longer could be alive after 31 January 1943. The Municipality of Amsterdam then was commissioned to draw up a certificate of death for Louis de Zwarte in which was established that he died in Auschwitz on 31 January 1943.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Abraham Rodrigues Parreira, Salomon de Zwarte and Louis de Zwarte; archive cards of Mietje Rodrigues Parreira and Louis de Zwarte; ANDB membership of Louis de Zwarte; the dossier of foreigners of the City of Antwerp, nr. 173470 image 46-53; Amsterdam residence card Nieuwe Kerkstraat 61; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Mietje Rodrigues Parreira and Louis de Zwarte, the Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and the death certificate for Louis de Zwarte, nr. 211 dated 10 November 1950 from the A-register 58-folio 37.