Hijman Kanes was a son of Levie Kanes and Betje Koopman. He was born in Amsterdam on 16 October 1892 and earned his living as a docker in the port of Amsterdam. He married Heintje Vogel in Amsterdam on 17 June 1924, a daughter of Isaac Vogel and Trijntje Lubig. She was born on 11 March 1897.
When Heintje’s mother Trijntje Lubig passed away on 22 June 1918 and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen, she left her parental home the next year on 25 September 1919 and came living in with he brother-in-law Meijer Soep, who was married to her sister Anna Vogel. She lived there until her wedding in June 1924. Also Hijman kept living at home with his parents at Valkenburgerstraat 147.
After the wedding was concluded, Hijman and Heintje moved into a house at Valkenburgerstraat 178 3rd floor, moved however in October 1931 to the 1st floor of house 178. On 24 March 1932 they moved to Krugerplein 38 1st floor. There, on 21 July 1932 their son Louis was born. But in February 1933 they moved back to the 1st floor of Valkenburgerstraat 176.
Hijman Kanes was already taken to Westerbork possibly at the end of September 1942 and put on transport direction Auschwitz on 2 October 1942. This transport made a stop at Cosel, located ±80 km West from Auschwitz, where 160 persons fit for work between 15 and 50 year were forced to leave the train. Among those men also the then still 50-year old docker Hijman Kanes. They were put to work in the surrounding forced labor camps in Upper Silesia.
Hijman Kanes ended up in one of the labor camps of the Reichsautobahn Direktion in the resort Gross Rosen, which were involved in the construction of of an Autobahn. The labor as well the conditions in those camps were particularly harsh and inhumane, with many dying of exhaustion and disease, if they had not already been killed by guards.
As far it can be reconstructed, Hijman Kanes was transferred from the labor camp Sakrau to the “Arbeitskommando” (work command) Tränke on 22 Novembe 1942, where, according to the surviving witness Mr. Benjamins, Hijman Kanes would have been died in Tränke early 1943.
Despite of that, the Dutch Authorities after the war have established, that Hijman Kanes formally had died in Tränke only 31 October 1943. The testimony of Mr. Benjamins is thereby not included. (see also “the date of death of Hijman Kanes”)
From data of the registration cards of the Jewish Council of Heintje Kanes-Vogel, it appears that she and her son Louis has been “zurückgestellt”- exempted from deportation for the time being, but on their Jewish Council registration cards a reason for it is not to find. However, on 30 March 1943 they were taken to Westerbork where both were housed in barrack 61.
On 11 May 1943, Heintje Kanes-Vogel and her son Louis were put on transport to Sobibor. The transport contained a total of 1446 deportees, who upon arrival there on 14 May 1943, except for one survivor of this transport, were all immediately murdered in the gas chambers.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Isaac Vogel, Levie Kanes and Hijman Kanes; archive cards of Hijman Kanes, Heintje Vogel and Louis Vogel; website wiewaswie/wedding Hijman Kanes x Heintje Vogel; City Archive, residence cards of Valkenburgerstraat 176 and 178 and Krugerplein 38; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Hijman Kanes, Heintje Kanes-Vogel and Louis Kanes and the Wikipedia website Jodentransports from the Netherlands.nl.