Salomon Benjamin van Geldere was the eldest of the three children of Isaac van Geldere and Sara de Vries. He was born in Rotterdam on 2 May 1901 and during his working life he was a shop assistant, among others with his uncle Jooseph van Geldere, who had a shop in the Molenstraat 14 in Den Haag.
Salomon Benjamin lived in Rotterdam at Kipstraat 66b but left for Brussels on 30 October 1922, from where he returned in Rotterdam in June 1924. Two months later he left for Den Haag where he came living in with his uncle Joseph. However his uncle passed away shortly after his arrival, on 29 March 1925, but Salomon Benjamin remained in Den Haag. Although his aunt Rosa Rosenbach had two children, but they were married and lived no longer at home.
At the end of December 1926, he returned in Rotterdam, to leave again for Den Haag in March 1927, where he married Eva van der Stam on the 16th of March. Eva was born on 16 September 1904 as a daughter of the cattle trader and wholesaler in meat Meijer van der Stam and Jetje Polak. On 13 January 1928 their first child Jetty was born and on 9 August 1933 their second child Selma.
The Van Geldere family lived at Kettingstraat 14 in Den Haag. Salomon Benjamin has been arrested, presumably in July 1943 and he ended up on 24 July 1943 in barrack 60 in Westerbork. On 24 August he was deported to Auschwitz but on arrival there not murdered in the gas chambers but most likely put to work as a forced labourer.
Notes on his registration card of the Jewish Counsil show, that Salomon Benjamin van Geldere upon arrival in Auschwitz the prisoners number (matricule) 139750 has received and that he has been transferred to Monowitz, where he was put to work at the Buna Werke, the factory where synthetic rubber was made. Further notes show that he was hospitalized in the Krankenbau (the prisoners hospital) of Monowitz and on 5 October there has been “entlassen” (discharged) and sent to Auschwitz. There he eventually lost his life on 5 December 1943.
On 27 October 1951 the Dutch Ministry of Justice commissioned the Civil Registry of Den Haag to draw up a certificate of death for Salomon Benjamin van Geldere, which stated that he has died in the vicinity of Auschwitz on 5 December 1943.
His wife Eva van der Stam and both his daughters Jetty and Selma have surived the Shoah.
Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Isaac van Geldere; The Municoapl Archive of Den Haag, family registration cards of Isaac van Geldere and Salomon Benjamin van Geldere; website wiewaswie.nl/wedding Van Geldere x Van der Stam; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Salomon Benjamin van Geldere, Eva van Geldere-van der Stam, Jetty van Geldere and Selma van Geldere; the wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl; website Memorial & Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau/Auschwitz prisoners/Salomon van Geldere (139750) and the certificate of death from Den Haag, nr. 3663 of 27 October 1951 for Salomon Benjamin van Geldere.