Benjamin Gokkes, son of David Gokkes and Rachel Rimini, was born on 6 August 1905 in Amsterdam. He was a teacher by profession. When his parents moved from Uithoornstraat 6 to Newtonstraat 62 on 6 September 1932, Benjamin also moved to another address: Pythagorasstraat 10 in Amsterdam, where he was given living space with the family of the teacher OLO Jacob Isaac Arenowitz. But on 26 October 1932 he left for Breda, where he lived at St. Jozefstraat 8. He married Eva Bokkie, a daughter of Isaac Bokkie and Hanna Stuiver, on 8 August 1933 in Amsterdam. Her surname Bokkie was changed to De Bock by K.B. in 1936. Their son David Jacques André Gokkes was born on 5 August 1938.
Benjamin Gokkes went into hiding with his family but was arrested by betrayal and ended up in Westerbork with his wife on 7 November 1942 as a “penal case”. His don David survived the Shoah because he was still in hiding. Benjamin and his family were “gesperrt{ (exempted from deportation) because of his position (rector (head master) of the Jewish Lyceum in Den Bosch since 20 November 1941 and teacher at the Jewish H.B.S. in Amsterdam since 15 September 1942.
His Jewish Council registration card contained the following notes: (efforts to escape deportation)
7 November 1942: As head master of Jewish Gymnasium Den Bosch, had Sperr call-up for 19 October 1942.
7 November 1942: intervene by request of v.d. Lane
10 November 1942: nothing yet available on 8 November.
11 November 1942: Call was passed on but nothing could be done. Is “S case”. (Penal case).
13 November 1942: Anfrage (inquiry) still in Westerbork
But Benjamin Gokkes had already been deported to Auschwitz on 10 November 1942. That transport was one of the so-called Cosel transports, with 758 deportees, of which 180 men between the ages of 15 and 50, fit for work were forced to leave the train in Cosel, located ± 80 km west of Auschwitz, to be employed as forced laborers in surrounding labor camps in Upper Silesia.
Benjamin Gokkes, then 37, was one of the 180 men who were taken from the train in Cosel. They all ended up first in St. Annaberg, a camp where work was being done on the “Reichs Autobahn”. From the statements of the 9 survivors of the transport of 10 November 1942, it can be deduced that the further route they had to follow to the various labor camps was via St. Annaberg to Johannsdorf, Klein Mangersdorf, Oderberg, Malapane, Seibersdorf and Blechhammer, and some to the Gross Rosen resort.
Benjamin Gokkes eventually ended up in the Neukirch forced labor camp, near what was then Breslau, which at the time belonged to the so-called Gross-Rosen complex. Near Breslau there was a quarry where men from the Cosel group died. Benjamin ultimately lost his life there on 8 March 1943 and ended up in a mass grave, located at the Jewish Cemetery on Flughafenstrasse in Breslau.
His wife Eva de Bock was deported from Westerbork only a month later with the last transport of 1942. She went to Auschwitz with the transport of 12 December 1942 and was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau upon arrival there on 15 December 1942. Their son David Jacques André Gokkes, who was born in Breda on 5 August 1938, was able to survive the Holocaust by going into hiding.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of David Gokkes (1861) and Benjamin Gokkes; registration in the Municipality of Breda of Benjamin Gokkes at St. Jozefstraat 8 per 26 Oct. 1932; Marriage certificate Amsterdam 1933, 6200-2d, deed 451 dated 8 Aug. 1933/Gokkes x Bokkie; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Benjamin Gokkes, Eva Gokkes-de Bock and David Jacques André Gokkes and the publication of the Dutch Red Cross, edited October 1952, “Auschwitz III” deportation transports in the so-called Cosel period; the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/12 Dec. 1942 and the death certificates made out in Breada, nr. B4 of 4 January 1951 for Eva Gokkes-de Bock and nr. B26 of 17 January 1952 for Benjamin Gokkes.