Sophia Marianna van Geldere was a daughter of Isaac van Geldere and Sara de Vries. She was born on 4 September 1902 in Rotterdam. She was unmarried and lived at home with her parents at Kipstraat 66b in Rotterdam. Just as her father, she was a shopkeeper and dealer of furniture.
Her father passed away on 20 Autust 1935 in Rotterdam and one month after the passing of Isaac van Geldere on 20 August 1935, her mother, the widowed Sara van Geldere-de Vries left for Den Haag, together with her still unmarried daughter Sophia Marianna, where they came to live at Schenkkade 110. Sara de Vries however left already on 1 July 1936 Den Haag again for Haarlem.
Sophia Marianna van Geldere then moved firstly to Molenstraat 14 in Den Haag, to her aunt and widow of Joseph van Geldere, Rosa Rosenbach but early 1937 she left from Adelheidstraat 115 in Den Haag to Provenierssingel 79 in Rotterdam and later agin to Stationsstraat 1 in Rotterdam.
At the time of the obligatory registration of al the Jews in the Netherlands, Sophia Marianna stayed as domestic aid at the Gevers Deynootweg 68 in Scheveningen. But probably under the pressure of the German occupier, when the Atlantikwall had to be built, people had to leave the coastal areas more to the inland and Sophia Marianna left there and finally arrived at Biesboschstraat 45 1st floor in Amsterdam.
The transportlist of 7 August 1942 from the Archive of the Red Cross – a list of people gathered at the Hollandsche Schouwburg and at the Adema van Scheltemaplein (Zentralstelle) – showed that Sophia Marianna van Geldere, residing at Biesboschstraat 45 in Amsterdam, that 7th of August was deported to Westerbork.
On 10 August 1942 Sophia Marianna was put on transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz in a transport of in total 559 deportees. Not known is whether she has reported voluntarily or not fot the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz”- the provision of additional work in Germanu under police surveillance – but it became clear that she wasn’t murdered in the gaschambers upon arrival in Auschwitz. She has been put to work, but what work and where is unknown.
The Dutch authorities have established after the war, also based on testimonies of survivors and research, that Sophia Marianna van Geldere no longer could be alive after 30 September 1942. Then the Municipality of Den Haag has been commissioned to draw up an death certificate for Sophia Marianna van Geldere, in which was stated that she had died in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942.
Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Isaac van Geldere; the Municipal Archive of Den Haag, family registration cards of Isaac van Geldere and Sopia Marianna van Geldere; the Archive of the Red Cross/transportlist of 7 August 1942/nr. 322; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Sophia Marianna van Geldere and the certificate of death made out in Den Haag, nr. 1818 dated 27 July 1950 for Sophia Marianna van Geldere and the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl.