David de Zwarte was a son of Simon de Zwarte and Mietje Polak. He was born in Amsterdam on 1 July 1907 and was employed as a rag sorter, just like his father. His father was employed with Messrs. P. Bonda at Koog aan de Zaan and David with Messrs. Ca. de Raaij.
Before they ended up at Cilliersstraat 8 in Amsterdam on 20 May 1931, David’s parents had lived at 9 different addresses in the city. On 29 October 1936 they moved to Retiefstraat 26 and David lived at the same addresses.
On 3 July 1935, David married in Amsterdam Lena van Kreeveld, a natural daughter of Hendrica van Kreeveld. Already 3 months after her birth, she moved with her mother and elder brother Joseph from Amsterdam to Antwerp. Lena returned to Amsterdam only in 1931 where she too lived at different addresses in the city, among othere with family at Nieuwe Heerengracht and at Nieuwe Keizersgracht. Lena was employed as seamstress.
However, Lena and David's marriage ended already after only a few months; on 7 November 1935, the marriage was dissolved by a verdict of the Amsterdam District Court and registered on 14 February 1936 in the registers of the Civil Registry of Amsterdam.
Only on 19 August 1942, David de Zwarte remarried the leather worker Hanna van Gelder, who was born in Amsterdam on 29 July 1916 as a daughter of Gerrit van Gelder and Sippora Querido. Before she married, she lived at Pretoriusstraat but after the marriage was concluded, she moved in with her newly wed husband at Cilliersstraat and Retiefstraat.
On 12 July 1942, David de Zwarte, as well his wife Hanna van Gelder were provisionally exempted from deportation. They had no official “Sperre from the Jewish Council but postponed for now, because they were considered as so-called “Rüstungjuden”. That group consisted of Jews who were considered indispensable by the Germans for the war industry. They were workers in the fur and clothing industry, the rag, scrap metal or scrap paper sorting companies. (source: Publication “Presumably on transport” by Raymund Schütz page 41 – only Dutch language).
Presumably David and Hanna had made further attempts to escape deportation, possibly by going into hiding, which apparently failed in June 1943. After being arrested, they were carried off to Westerbork on 15 June 1943, where both ended up in penal barrack 67. On 6 July they were deported to Sobibor as “penal cases”. The transport included more than 2400 victims, all of whom were immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Sobibor on arrival on 9 July 1943.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Simon de Zwarte and David de Zwarte; archive cards of David de Zwarte, Simon de Zwarte and Hanna van Gelder; the Dutch Red Cross archive/Hopla transport list of 15 June 1943 Amsterdam->Westerbork/David de Zwarte and Hanna de Zwarte-van Gelder; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of David de Zwarte and Hanna de Zwarte-van Gelder and the Wikipedia listing of Jodentransporten uit Nederland.nl/6 July 1943.