Hartog Vogel was a son of Isaac Vogel and Trijntje Lubig. He was born in Amsterdam on 6 April 1893 and worked as a laborer in the Amsterdam harbor. On 4 March 1925, the then 31-year-old Hartog Vogel married the 32-year-old Schoontje Wertheijm, who was born in Amsterdam on 9 May 1892 as the daughter of Levie Wertheijm and Heintje Vogel.
However, their son Levie had been born 9 years earlier: on 24 September 1916. Schoontje Wertheijm, then 24 years old, a maid and living on the Nieuwmarkt, acknowledged her son Levie at birth and Hartog Vogel acknowledged his son at the time of his marriage with Schoontje in 1925.
Before Hartog and Schoontje moved in together in March 1925 with his mother-in-law Heintje Vogel, who had become widowed from his father-in-law Levie Wertheijm since December 1903, Hartog had found accommodation with Juda Wurms at Foeliestraat 38. In May 1922 he lived with the widow of Mozes van Kleef at Valkenburgerstraat 12 groundfloor, from where he moved in September 1924 to house number 9 2nd floor/backside. In the summer of 1936 the family moved to Rapenburgerstraat 44 1st floor/backside.
In the spring of 1942, Hartog Vogel was called up to one of the Jewish Labor Camps in the Northern Netherlands, although it is not known where he was then put to work. But on 31 August 1942, Hartog was deported from that labor camp via Westerbork to Auschwitz with 559 other victims.
That transport was a so-called Cosel transport. The deportation train made a stopover in Cosel, located about 80 km west of Auschwitz, where 200 boys and men between the ages of 15 and 50 were forced to leave the train, to be put to work as forced laborers in the surrounding labor camps in Upper Silesia. They ended up in Niederkirch – Fürstengrube – Graditz and other places of the Gross Rosen resort and finally in Langenbielau/Reichenbach.
A summary of the conclusions regarding the fate of the men of this transport, as stated in the brochure Auschwitz volume 3 – the Cosel period - reads (also relating to Hartog Vogel): Unless, in individual cases it appears otherwise and with due observance of the general conclusions, the men of the transport of 31 August 1942 who disembarked in Cosel must be considered to have died: after 3 September 1942, but no later than 31 March 1944 in Fürstengrube (Upper Silesia, Poland) or in one of the labor camps in Lower Silesia (Poland). (See also More about the transport of 31 August 1942)
Contrary to what happened to her husband Hartog, Schoontje Wertheijm received a “Sperre because of function” from the Jewish Council. Her registration card lists the number of that exemption: 23/96981. Numbers between 80,000 and 100,000 were actually considered Jewish council stamps. Her Jewish Council card also states that she had been working as a fruit and vegetable dealer for 20 years. It is not inconceivable that the Jewish Council used her for the distribution of fruit and vegetables, although no mention was made of this on her Jewish Council card. It does state however that at the time of her registration her husband was already in Germany.....
The “exemption from deportation until further notice” appeared to have cancelled in the second half of May 1943. By order of the Germans and the “Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung”, (Central Office for Jewish Emigration), 7000 Jews had to report to the Polderweg in Amsterdam-East on 25 May 1943 for leaving to Westerbork. About 1600 responded to that call and came to the assembly area on their own.
No doubt Schoontje Vogel-Wertheijm had joined them. She arrived in Westerbork on 25 June and she ended up in barrack 63. On 1 June she was deported to Sobibor. A massive transport then departed from Westerbork with more than 3000 other deportees. Arrival in Sobibor on 4 June 1943, where Schoontje Vogel Wertheijm and all but one of the others were immediately murdered in the gas chambers. The only survivor of that transport was Jules Schelvis.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Hartog Vogel, archive cards of Hartog Vogel, Schoontje Wertheijm and Levie Vogel; Amsterdam certificate of birth no. 11164 of 26 September 1916 for Levie Vogel; Dutch Red Cross publication Auschwitz volume III – the Cosel period; Amsterdam residence cards with Hartog Vogel of Marken 1, Valkenburgerstraat 12 and Rapenburgerstraat 44 1st floor; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Hartog Vogel, Schoontje Vogel-Wertheijm and the website Jodentransporten from the Netherlands.nl