Izak Bloemist was a son of Barend Bloemist and Roosje Waterman. He was born in Amsterdam on 20 December 1910 and in his younger years he was employed as hairdresser attendant. On 18 December 1935 he married Catharina Vogel in Amsterdam, a seamstress who was born on 23 June 1911 as the eldest daughter of Joseph Vogel and his first wife Lina de Korte.
With his parents, Izak lived at Lange Houtstraat 17 and moved along with them in 1926 to Blasiusstraat 59 2nd floor. But in 1935, after the marriage was concluded, Izak and his wife Catharina moved into a house at Eerste Oosterparkstraat 129 2nd floor, There, on 14 August 1940 their only son Joseph was born.
Izak Bloemist, meantime accomplished hairdresser, was employed at the barber shop of Louis de Lange at Joden Breestraat 51. This barber shop however was designated by the Germans as a “Joodsch Lokaal” – a Jewish Shop – which meant that only Jewish persons were allowed there to be cut and shaved. It was therefore that the De Lange family was “gesperrt”- exempted from deportation for the time being, but was arrested during the raid of 26 May 1943, carried off to Westerbork, deported to Sobibor and murdered there upon arrival on 4 June 1943.
Also Izak Bloemist was arrested; that happened already during the large-scale raids of early October 1942, where Izak somewhere between 3 and 5 October 1942 ended up in Westerbork. His wife Catharina Vogel and his son Joseph went into hiding and survived the Holocaust. Catharina Vogel, after de war got married again on 12 May 1948 to Jesaija Canes. Izak Bloemist however was put on transport on 23 October 1942 to Auschwitz.
After the war is listed on Izak’s Jewish Council registration card, whereto the Germans had deported him and where he had been put to work in forced labor:
Between 3 and 5 October 1942: arrest in Amsterdam and carried off to- and arrival in Westerbork.
On 23 October 1942: deportation from Westerbork to Auschwitz.
On 22 November 1942: transferred from Auschwitz to Gross Rosen.
On 10 February 1945: arrival in Buchenwald through a so-called evacuation transport from Gross Rosen.
The course of the evacuation transport of 7 Februaty 1945 from Gross Rosen was by train via Liegnietz, Goerlitz, Dresden, Chemnitz, Gern, Jena, Weimar to Buchenwald. Arrival there on 9 and 10 February 1945. In Auschwitz, Izak received the prison number 176684 which was used in Gross Rosen too. In Buchenwald he got prison number 126682.
Due to pneumonia, (“Lungenentzündung”), Izak Bloemist died in Buchenwald on 27 February 1945. (Source: certificate of death from the Civil Registry of Weimar, no. 976/1948 dated 6 September 1948).
Other sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Joseph Vogel, Barend Bloemist and Louis de Lange; archive cards of Izak Bloemist and Catharina Vogel; website ITS Arolson/Izak Bloemist; The Dutch Red Cross publication Auschwitz volume 6 edited March 1952 – evacuation transports – page 75 Gross Rosen and further; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Izak Bloemist, Catharina Bloemist-Vogel and Joseph Bloemist.