Isaac Speelman was a son of Koopman Speelman (sometimes called Karel) and Judith Kan. He was born on 10 November 1891 in Amsterdam and had an elder brother Jacob Abraham from 1890 and two sisters, Elizabeth from 1893 and Saartje from 1899. His mother however passed away already in 1912 and his father remarried on 12 July 1916 in Zaandam Rebecca Lopes Quiros, a daughter of David Lopes-Quiros and Sara de la Fuente. She was born on 14 September 1875.
His brother Jacob Abraham married in 1913 Alida Blits and they had two children, who were killed in Auschwitz, whilst their parents were murdered in Sobibor. His younger sister Saartje married in 1922 Salomon Simon van Kollem and had four children. They too were all killed in Auschwitz. Isaac’s sister Elizabeth married Lodewijk Sarlouis and both have survived the Holocaust. Isaac Speelman self and his wife Esther van West were murdered too in Auschwitz.
Isaac Speelman was brilliant polisher by profession. In 1906 he was admitted as an apprentice with the ANDB and learned the trade from his father Karel Speelman at the company Boas Brothers. He passed the aptitude test with J.J. Ascher and per 30 April 1909, he became a member of the ANDB in section 2 (brilliant polishing). In 1922 and 1925 he was unsubscribed as a member but admitted again in 1924 and 1925. In 1927 Isaac was unsubscribed again when he left for Antwerp.
On 28 October 1910 Isaac was designated as suitable fort he National Militia. He then still lived with his parents at Blasiusstraat 40. Up from 30 April till 15 December 1917 Isaac stayed at Fort Spijkerboor, located in the polder Beemster near the village of De Rijp. Whether this had to do with his service at the National Militia and/or the First World War, which then was not still ended, is unknown.
At the end of December 1917, Isaac returned in Amsterdam and then lived at Graaf Florisstraat 21 3rd floor. On 7 October 1920 he married Esther van West, a daughter of Salomon van West and Betje Lelie. Esther was born on 30 August 1883. Isaac and Esther together had one daughter, Alida, who was born already on 1 June 1911 in Antwerp, but only was legitimized during the wedding of her parents on 7 October 1920, so then she was officially acknowleged as their daughter.
Since 15 October 1920 they lived at 1e Oosterparkstraat 96 2nd floor, moved later to Blasiusstraat 36 and Mauritsstraat 9 and up from 1927 Isaac stayed fors ome time in Antwerp. After their daughter Alida was married to Jacob Speijer in 1934, Isaac and Esther moved too to Den Haag, where they found living space at Marktweg 66. There Isaac Speelman earned his living as street market vendor of furs. Even before the official divorce of his daughter Alida from Jacob Speijer, also Alida with her eldest son Robert Sem Speijer moved from Amsterdam to Den Haag where she came to live at Marktweg 68, just beside her parents.
Isaac Speelman was employed on 24 July 1942 in the Jewish labor camp Geesbrug near Hoogeveen by the Regional Employment Office of Den Haag. However, on the Jewish most holiest day of Jom Kipur on 2 October 1942, all Jewish labour camps were liquidated on orders of the Germans and all Jewish labourers were carried off (walking and/or by train) to Westerbork. Most of them arrived there between 3 and 5 October. Just because the Germans organized large-scaled round-ups at the same time too, when thousands of Jewish citizens (men, women, children and families) were arrested and carried off to Westerbork, the situation in the camp was more than chaotic.
In the context of the so-called 'family reunion', as the Germans called it, also the families of the Jewish forced laborers were called up and brought to Westerbork. The intention was that people then could be deported as a family to the extermination camps in the East. But on 5 October 1942 a note was made on the Jewish Council registration card of Isaac Speelman which reads: “spouse ill – husband to be held up”. It meant that the so-called family reunification for Isaac Speelman could not yet take place and Isaac was housed in barrack 68. The next week even was requested for a medical certificate.
The illness of Isaac's wife Esther van West meant that she was not sufficiently recovered until early January 1943 as part of the so-called family reunification to be transported to Westerbork. She arrived there only on the 16th of January and was housed too in barrack 68, where they both could still “enjoy their relative freedom”.
Only on 23 February 1943 Isaac and Esther were put on transport to Auschwitz. This transport contained more than 1100 deportees and arrived in Auschwitz on 26 February 1943, after which Isaac Speelman and Esther Speelman van West were murdered immediately in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the end there were only four survivors of this transport.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Koopman Speelman and Isaac Speelman, archive cards of Koopman Speelman and Rebecca Lopes-Quiros, birth certificate 11944 for Isaac Speelman; ANDB apprentice- and membership cards of Isaac Speelman; Municipal Archive of Den Haag/family registration card of Isaac Speelman; the file cabinet of the Jewisch Council, registration cards of Esther Speelman-van West and Isaac Speelman; NIOD Dossier 249-0970 (Joden-Werkkampen)/transport of Isaac Speelman to labour camp Geesbrug; website Jewish Labour camps/Geesbrug; website eviction Jewish Labour camps; Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl; Red Cross archives/transports Westerbork-Auschwitz and the certificate of death for Isaac Speelman C519 made out in Den Haag dated 10 February 1951.