Jacob Abraham Speelman was a son of Koopman Speelman and Judith Kan. He was born in Amsterdam on 24 November 1890 and was a diamond polisher by profession. He married there on 6 February 1913 the daughter of Simon Blits and Naatje Vleesdrager, Alida Blits, who was born in Amsterdam too on 15 September 1892. The couple had twee children, viz. Judith on 5 January 1914 and Simon on 19 June 1916. After their wedding, the couple lived at Graaf Florisstraat 21 until 1934. There, also both the children were born.
The Speelman family moved to Swammerdamstraat in March 1934 and in 1936 to Vechtstraat in Amsteram-|South. Their last known address in Amsterdam was Hofmeyrstraat 11 2nd floor in Amsterdam-East, where they have resided from 12 November 1938 till the moment of their deportation in May 1943 to the extermination camps in Eastern Europe.
On 20 May 1940 the family got a new lodger, viz. Isidore Henri van Dantzig, who was born in Rotterdam on 15 March 1921; he was an instrument maker by profession. On 1 April 1942 he married the daughter of the house, Judith Speelman but already a few month later, around the first deportations in July 1942, they were both deported to Auschwitz where they have lost their lives. Also Simon Speelman, who was unmarried, lost his life in Auschwitz in January 1944.
Jacob Abraham Speelman received a “Sperre” from the Jewish Council, so he and his wife Alida Blits were exempted from deportation for the time being. Up from 1 August 1942 he worked for the JVVVV, the Jewish Society for Nursing and Caring, as a messenger for the Dutch Israëlitic Boys Orphanage, which was located at Amstel 21. The Jewish Council provided him an ID, no. Z-1848.
In 1942, the Germans ordered the construction of a concentration camp near ’s-Hertogenbosch, which became known as Camp Vught. Jacob Abraham Speelman and Alida Blits belonged to one of the earliest groups of prisoners, who just after the opening of the camp on 13 January 1943, arrived there on 20 January. The camp was still under construction and had to be finished by the prisoners self.
Eventually, Jacob Abraham and Alida were transferred to Westerbork on 23 May, to be deported to Sobibor on 25 May 1943. The transport contained more than 2860 deportees, who upon arrival there on 28 May 1943 were all immediately murdered in the gas chambers there. Among them Jacob Abraham Speelman and his wife Alida Speelman-Blits too. There were no suvivors.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Jacob Abraham Speelman, archive cards of Jacob Abraham Speelman and Alida Blits; the file cabinet of the Jewish Coundil, registration cards of Jacob Abraham Speelman and Alida Speelman-Blits; website ITS Arolson/camp cards Vught of Jacob Abraham Speelman and Alida Speelman-Blits and the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl.