Isaäc van Praag was a son of the diamond cutter and later grocery store owner Wolf van Praag and Marianna Koopman. He was born on 16 July 1891 at Waterlooplein 78 in Amsterdam. Later in life he ran a butter and cheese business but later became a goldsmith by profession. On 21 July 1921, he married Sara Coe, the eldest of the three children of Isaac Marcus Coe and Betje Wittenburg. Sara was born in Amsterdam on 21 January 1898 and after her marriage she became a shopkeeper in her husband's butter and cheese business.
After the marriage of Isaäc and Sara had been concluded, they moved into a house at Swammerdamstraat 66 in Amsterdam East, where Isaäc had his butter and cheese business and where their two children were born: daughter Willy on 6 January 1925 and in the next year, Jacques was born on 22 December 1926.
The Van Praag-Coe family lived in Swammerdamstraat in Amsterdam until September 1932; On 1 September, they moved to Scheldestraat 8, a shop with a private house, where Isaäc and his wife Sara became branch managers of one of the Fa's branches of messrs. M.L. de Lange. This company traded in butter and cheese too and already had stores at Eerste Boerhaavestraat 9, Van Woustraat 226, Hoogeweg 40, Cornelis Schuytstraat 34 and also Scheldestraat 8; De Lange's head office was located at Rapenburgerstraat 155.
The registrations in the Amsterdam address books show that Isaäc van Praag's butter and cheese business, after moving to Scheldestraat in 1932, also remained located in Swammerdamstraat for a few years and may have been continued. But the registration of professions also shows that Isaäc van Praag chose a new profession in the course of the 1930s: he became a goldsmith.
After the mandatory registration of all Jews in the Netherlands was completed, Isaäc van Praag received a special exemption from deportation in the summer of 1942, the so-called “Joodsch Lokaal Sperre”. This was undoubtedly granted to him on the basis of his branch ownership of the butter and cheese business of the M.L.de Lange company in the Scheldestraat. Isaäc and his family were temporarily exempted from deportation by the Joodsch Lokaal Sperre LOK-A.
Yet that exemption did not last long; on 21 November 1942, Isaäc van Praag, his wife Sara Coe and daughter Willy were called up and carried off to Westerbork. They stayed there until 12 December and on that date, they were deported to Auschwitz with 754 other deportees. It was the last transport of 1942 from Westerbork to Auschwitz “because of train equipment be needed for the Christmas recess of soldiers” (see Wikipedia website Jodentransporten uit Nederland.nl/12 Dec 1942 - The railway company in wartime, C. Huurman, 2007).
Research by the Red Cross from October 1952 into, among other things, the transports during the so-called Cosel period (from 28 August to 12 December 1942), also shows that the transport of 12 December 1942 was a so-called “direct transport to Auschwitz”. The deportation train did not make a stop in Cosel but drove directly from Westerbork to Auschwitz.
The transport lists of 20/21 November 1942 Amsterdam to Westerbork also show that son Jacques van Praag was also carried off to Westerbork, along with the other family members, on 21 November 1942, although notes on his registration card from the Jewish Council sometimes gave a different impression. It can be assumed with considerable certainty that all four Van Praag family members were deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz on 12 December 1942.
The aforementioned research also shows that of that transport of 757 deportees, 158 men were selected for "labor" upon arrival in Auschwitz, whose date of birth was after 15 December 1901 but before 15 December 1927. Isaäc van Praag and his wife Sara Coe were born before 1901 and daughter Willy was not selected because she was a woman. The result was that Isaac, Sara and Willy were immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau after arriving in Auschwitz on 15 December 1942. All other deportees – who fell outside the criteria set by the Germans – were also immediately gassed; there were no survivors from that transport.
At the other hand, Jacques van Praag was almost 16 years old on 15 December 1942, to be more precise: 15 years and nearly 12 months old. From the notes on his registration card from the Jewish Council, he was called up on 17 July 1942 for "employment under police surveillance in Germany", the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz”. He subsequently received a postponement of deportation through the Jewish Council, and thus also the members of the family, because of his age (he was still under 16 years old at the time). This was also written on his registration card: "unter 16 Jahre". The date of birth of 22 December 1926 indicates, that this Sperre was valid until 22 December 1942.
From his death certificate it can be deduced from the date of death as determined after the war, that Jacques van Praag, as one of the 158 men who were punt to work upon arrival in Auschwitz, still stayed “somewhere” as a forced laborer, but it is unknown where. His exact date of death is also unknown. That is why the Dutch Authorities determined after the war, partly based on investigations by the Red Cross and testimonies from survivors, that Jacques van Praag could no longer be alive after 28 February 1943. The municipality of Amsterdam was then instructed to draw up a death certificate for him, which recorded that Jacques van Praag died on 28 February 1943 in Auschwitz in Poland.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Wolf van Praag, Isaac Marcus Coe and Isaäc van Praag; archive cards of Isaac van Praag, Sara Coe, Jacques van Praag and Willy van Praag; address books of Amsterdam 1930-1940/Scheldestraat 8 and Swammerdamstraat 66; The archives of the Dutch Red Cross/transportlists Amsterdam->>Westerbork of 20/21 November 1942; the file cabinet of the Jeswisch Council, registration cards of Isaäc van Praag, Sara van Praag-Coe, Willy van Praag and Jacques van Praag; The archives of the Red Cross/Publication/Auschwitz III edited October 1952/pages 85/the transport of 12-12-1942; the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/12-12-1942 and further info by Mr. Raymund Schutz re exemptions from deportation.