Judith Dobrowitsky was the eldest of the three children of Joseph Dobrowitsky and Heintje Michel. She married Günter Max Wollheim from Berlin on 25 March 1942, a son of Hugo Wollheim and Meta Neubürger. Via London he arrived in Amsterdam in April 1936, lived at various addresses in the city, such as Amstelkade and Roerstraat, but when he married Judith Dobrowitsky, they moved into a house together at Krammerstraat 31 ground floor, after which they moved on 10 May 1943 to the Diezestraat 32 II in Amsterdam South.
Judith had a good education: she had her diplomas in MULO, evening school, shorthand typing and German; in her former job she worked as an executive secretary. When she was registered with the Jewish Council, she was “gesperrt due to function” (exempted from deportation until further notice): she was given a position as a shorthand typist and Dutch-German correspondent at the Jewish Council at the Oosteinde 16 branch, for which she was given an A-1707 identification. Her husband, whom she married in March 1942, was also provisionally exempted from deportation.
Günter Max Wollheim, born on 7 September 1908 in Berlin, was a lawyer, but when he came to the Netherlands in 1936 he was registered as a “house servant”; later he became an “employee in the service of the Jewish Council”, possibly because of his legal knowledge. There is no mention of this on his registration card from the Jewish Council; he was “gesprerrt” because of his wife”. From which it might be deduced that Günter was unable to get a position as a lawyer in Amsterdam.
Stories from surviving relatives show that both had the opportunity to go into hiding, but Judith preferred to stay with her husband. And on 20 June 1943, during a raid in East and South Amsterdam that had been secretly prepared by the Germans, they were arrested, together with a group of Jews who still remained in Amsterdam. This happened three months before Amsterdam was declared 'Judenrein'. 5542 people were arrested during that conscious raid, registered at Olympiaplein, Sarphatipark and Daniel Willinkplein. They were then transported by train to Camp Westerbork (source: Oorlogsbronnen).
In Westerbork, Judith was housed in barrack 68 and Günter in barrack 53 and were deported to Auschwitz on 7 September 1943 with 985 other victims. After arriving on 9 or 10 September, Günter Max was selected for debris clearance work in the destroyed Warsaw ghetto and Judith was sent to Birkenau.
For the women, the work there turned out to be very hard, in connection with which the maximum life span of these women was estimated to be little more than 2 months. After a research, the Dutch Red Cross has determined that it can be assumed that they had died no later than 30 November 1943.
This date of death was adopted by the Dutch authorities, after which a death certificate was drawn up by the municipality of Amsterdam on 12 July 1951, in which it is recorded that Judith Wollheim-Dobrowitsky died on 30 November 1943 in the vicinity of Auschwitz.
As far as Günter Max Wollheim is concerned: at the beginning of October 1943, a month after the arrival of the transport of 7 September 1943 from Westerbork in Auschwitz with a total of 987 deportees, a group of 187 Dutch prisoners was formed who were deported to Warsaw to work in the area of to clear the devastated ghetto rubble. There was originally a group of 264 men, under the age of 50, of whom 77 were murdered in the gas chamber.
It had previously been decided to transfer the entire contingent of men that had arrived from Westerbork on 9 September 1943 to Warsaw. All men between the ages of 16 and 51 who were transported to Poland on the 7 September transport ended up in Warsaw via Auschwitz on 8 October where they died before 31 March 1944, according to a later determination by the Red Cross.
It has also been established that a great many prisoners who were housed as forced laborers in a camp in Warsaw died during a severe typhus epidemic in early 1944. Including many Jews from the Netherlands.
On 17 August 1951, a death certificate was drawn up for Günter Max Wollheim, commissioned by the Ministry of Justice - partly after an investigation by the Red Cross, stating that he died on 31 March 1944 in the vicinity of Auschwitz. Based on what was mentioned earlier about Warsaw, it can be assumed that Günter Max Wollheim died in Warsaw. (note that the official and legal place of death “vicinity of Auschwitz” on the Jewish Monument is maintained).
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Joseph Dobrowitsky, archive cards of Judith Dobrowitsky and Günter Max Wollheim; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Judith Wollheim-Dobrowitsky and Günter Max Wollheim; death certificates made out in Amsterdam: for Judith Wollheim-Dobrowitksy deed 446 dated 12 July 1951 from the A-register A81- folio 76v and for Günter Max Wollheim deed 156 dated 17 Augustus 1951 from the A-register A84- folio 28; information of surviving family; the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and the publication “Auschwitz part IV, deportation transports in 1943 edited by the Dutch Red Cross in October 1953.