Israël de Vries was a son of Meijer de Vries and Mietje van Coevorden. He was born on 23 September 1899 in Amsterdam when his parents lived on the Oude Schans. Israël was the second child in the family, which would include a total of 6 children. Israël's older brother was Joseph, and his younger brother was Daniel and his younger sisters were Hendrika, Johanna, and Sarlina. The father of Israël, Meijer de Vries (1869) died in Amsterdam on 22 May 1940; his mother and sibs (with or without their families) were murdered during the Shoah.
Israel de Vries, who was a steamer of caps by trade, married on 1 March 1933 to Mietje Tas, a daughter of Nathan Tas and Reina Dreese. She was born in Amsterdam on 16 November 1905, the eldest of three children in the Tas family; Besides her brother Hartog, who was murdered in Buchenwald in 1941, Mietje's parents and her sister Marianne and her family were also murdered during the Shoah.
After they got married, Israel and Mietje moved into a house at the 3rd floor of Waverstraat 64 in the River-district of Amsterdam. Their son Meijer (known as Max) was born there on 14 June 1935. However, at the time of the large-scale raids at the beginning of October 1942, the family of Israël de Vries was arrested and carried off to Westerbork, where they were brought in on 3 October and two days later Israel, Mietje and Meijer de Vries were already deported to Auschwitz.
The transport of 5 October 1942 contained 2012 deportees, including a first part of the 10,000 Jewish forced labourers from the Jewish labor camps in the Northern Netherlands liquidated on 3 October 1942, who were deported from Westerbork on 5 October too.
The deportation train made a stop in Cosel, located ± 80 km west of Auschwitz, where 550 boys and men between 15 and 50 years old were forced to leave the train, to be put to work as forced laborers in the surrounding labor camps in Upper Silesia. Those who were left behind on the train were sent to Auschwitz to be murdered on arrival on 8 October 1942. That was also the fate of 36-year-old Mietje de Vries-Tas and her 7-year-old son Meijer (Max) de Vries.
It is very likely that Israël de Vries belonged to the group of 550 men who had to leave the train in Cosel. From the publication of the Dutch Red Cross of October 1952, “Auschwitz part III – the deportation transports in the so-called Cosel period from 28 August to 12 December 1942” the following is mentioned, among other things:
In an overview of the various transports (and here in particular the transport of 5 October 1942) one has established that of the number of 550 men who were fit to work and forcedly had to leave the train at Cosel, as well as the global routes followed to the various camps, that they ended up in the labor camps as St. Annaberg or Sakrau, Blechhammer and later partly in Bismarckhütte and Monowitz.
Nevertheless, it was not possible to determine for Israel de Vries where he ended up and when exactly he died. After the war, the Dutch authorities therefore established, partly on the basis of survivors' testimonies and research, that Israël de Vries died on 31 August 1943 in Mid-Europe.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Meijer de Vries, Nathan Tas and Israël de Vries, archive cards of Israël de Vries, Mietje Tas; Amsterdam residence card /Waverstraat 64 III; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Israël de Vries, Mietje de Vries-Tas and Meijer de Vries; Publication Auschwitz III edited by the Dutch Red Cross/October 1952/chapter II; the wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and the death certificate nr. 318 dated 11 January 1952 for Israël de Vries (A92-54v).