Simon Premselaar was a son of Aäron Premselaar and Jette Koe. He was born in Amsterdam on 24 March 1895 and he was a diamond sawyer by profession. On 1 April 1925 he married in Hilversum Johanna Krant, a daughter of Jonas Krant and Betje Breemer; she was born there on 4 January 1903. The Premselaar-Krant couple had two children, viz. Aäron on 27 December 1925 and on 16 December 1926 their daughter Betje, both born in Amsterdam.
Since 1918 Simon Premselaar no longer lived at home with his parents and siblings. He stayed in Maastricht, returned in 1922 in Amsterdam but in June 1924 he left for the Geuzenweg 147 in Hilversum and after being married to Johanna Krant in 1925, they moved in November 1937 to the Lammert Majoorlaan 1 in Bussum. On 19 April 1940 the Premselaar family returned to Amsterdam where they came to live in the Stolwijkstraat 59 1st floor.
After the Germans had established the Jewish Council in February 1941 and all Jews in the Netherlands were required to be registered, Simon Premselaar was given a position on March 10, 1942 as a house servant on behalf of the JVvVV, the Jewish Nursing Association in Beth Shalom on the Plantage Middenlaan. in Amsterdam. And on July 31, 1942, he became a general employee of the Jewish Council and Simon and his family were provisionally exempt from deportation from that moment on.
It is not clear whether the Premselaar family had gone into hiding at some point or not, and if so, when. It is clear that Johanna Krant and both her children Aäron and Betje were carried off in a penal transport to Westerbork (S-transportlist Amsterdam-Westerbok from 8 Aug 1944) and upon arrival there they were locked up in the penal barrack 67. Nothing was mentioned on the registration card of Simon Premselaar about this fact but other documents show that the entire family was unsubscribed from the Amsterdam Population Registry at one and the same date.
It might be assumed that Simon Premselaar has been deported together with his wife Johanna Krant and his children Aäron and Betje on 3 September in that s-called penal transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz on 3 September 1944. Certain is, that upon arrival there ±6 September, Simon's son Aäron Premselaar was added to the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz” however not known is where Aäron was put to work then. It is therefore that the Durch Authoroties after the war have commissioned the Municipality of Amsterdam to draw up a certificate of death for Aäron Premsalaar in which has been established that he has died (somewhere) in Poland on 15 March 1945.
It is also unknown where Johanna Premselaar-Krant and her daughter Betje Premselaar ended up in Auschwitz after their arrival on ± 6 September 1944 and whether or not they were employed as forced labourers. In the month of October 1944, more than nine so-called abduct transports of women from the Auschwitz complex to various sub-camps of the Gross Rosen concentration camp also took place, although it is not known exactly where Johanna and her daughter Betje died and when. After the war, the Dutch authorities had death certificates drawn up for both by the Municipality of Amsterdam, in which it was recorded that Johanna Premselaar-Krant and Betje Premselaar died on 31 October 1944 in the vicinity of Auschwitz.
In fact, nothing has become known about Simon Premselaar other than what appeared from his death certificate: he died in Bergen Belsen on 31 May 1945. In the final period, several so-called abduct transports to Bergen Belsen also took place from Auschwitz, where prisoners also from other transports - if they were still alive - as “Arbeitsunfähig” - too weak to work - were sent to Bergen Belsen. They did not leave Bergen Belsen before the liberation.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Aaron Premselaar (1863) and Simon Premselaar (1895); archive cards of Simon Premselaar, Johanna Krant and Aäron and Betje Premselaar; the archive of the Dutch Red Cross, transport list of 8 Aug 1944 Amsterdam-Westerbork; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Simon Premselaar, Johanna Premselaar-Krant and Aäron and Betje Premselaar; certificates of death, made out in Amsterdam, nr. 38 for Simon Premselaar dated 4 May 1970 from the year 1945, register 1-foli 7, nr. 569 for Johanna Krant from 24 July 1952 from the A-register 96-folio 97verso, nr. 205 for Betje Premselaar of 28 November 1952 from the A-register 98-folio 36 aand nr. 10 for Aäron Premselaar of 28 July 1955 from the A-register 108-folio 3 verso; Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland and the Dutch Red Cross publication volume IV of 1952, evacuation and abduct transport from Auschwitz.