David and Philip Ritmeester were the two youngest children of Jechiël Ritmeester and Elisabeth Brandon. After the death of father Jechiël on 16 March 1933, the Ritmeester family moved from Zandstraat to Lepelstraat 2 II in the old center of Amsterdam, from where David and Philip were placed in the Dutch Israelitic Boys' Orphanage Megadle Jethomiem on Amstel 21 in Amsterdam, a year after their father's death.
David had now become a warehouse clerk and Philip was a laboratory assistant and both were still unmarried. When the deportations began in mid-July 1942 under the guise of the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz”, (provision of additional work in Germany under police surveillance), both were carried off on the night of 19 July 1942 by the 2:16 a.m. train from Amsterdam Central Station to Westerbork and on 21 July with 929 other deportees put on transport to Auschwitz.
On 23 or 24 July the train arrived there and David and Philip were put to work, but it is unknown where and what work had to be done. What is known is that the conditions in Auschwitz turned out to be horrible and inhumanely difficult, which meant that the chances of survival were very limited. After the war it was not known on what date exactly David and Philip Ritmeester died.
Based on research by the Red Cross and testimonies from survivors, the Dutch Ministry of Justice decided that David and Philip Ritmeester could no longer have been alive after 30 September 1942. The municipality of Amsterdam was then instructed to draw up a death certificate for them, stating that they died in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942.
A number of years ago, however, it emerged from the remains of the Auschwitz administration, including the so-called "Sterbebücher"(death index), in which many deaths were recorded, that David Ritmeester was murdered in Auschwitz on 20 August 1942 and his brother Philip Ritmeester there on 22 August 1942.
After the war, the above was still unknown to the Dutch Authorities and the date on the Dutch death certificates of David and Philip Ritmeester are legal dates of death. The Jewish Monument only lists the official legal dates of death, as published at the time in the Dutch Government Gazette.
Sources include the Amsterdam City Archives, archive cards of David and Philip Ritmeester, website Jewish Amsterdam/Megadle Jethomiem, the archive of the Jewish Council, registration cards of David and Philip Ritmeester, the Archive of the Dutch Red Cross/transport lists of 19 July 1942 Amsterdam C.S. to Westerbork with mention of David and Philip Ritmeester, among others; the website Museum and Memorial Auschwitz-Birkenau/fate of David Ritmeester and Philip Ritmeester and the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten uit Nederland.nl.