Herman Nathan Beer, a son of Nathan Hermanus Beer and Clarisse Beer, was born on 10 May 1873 in Amsterdam. He married Rebecca Cohen in Amsterdam on 12 January 1905, a daughter of Sampson Cohen and Judith Pezaro. Rebecca was born on 17 October 1882. Herman and Rebecca had one daughter, Clarisse, woh was born in Amsterdam on 22 January 1906.
Herman Nathan Beer was a diamond polisher. He stayed for some months in Antwerp, where he per 14 April 1904 lived in at the address Provinciestraat Noord 191. After that, he became a member of the ANDB, the Algemene Nederlandse Diamantbewerkers Bond, and he lived at 1e Athehstraat 67 1st floor in Amsterdam at the time.
Herman then worked in department 8 as a cap processor (these are cap polishers or adjusters, whereby a cap is a piece of diamond in crystal form which usually will be processed into a brilliant), and from September 1927 in department 2 as a brilliant cutter.
After the birth of Clarisse in 1906 in Amsterdam, the family moved to Hilversum, but returned in 1912 to the 1e Atjehstraat in Amsterdam, now at no. 71, but from 13 August 1934 they moved into a house on the 3rd floor of the Molukkenstraat 93.
On 20 April 1939, his daughter Clarisse, who had already married Samuel Boas in 1931 and had the twins Herman and Louis in February 1934, moved to Hilversum. There they lived at Polluxstraat 1. Possibly during a visit to his daughter, Herman Nathan Beer passed away in Hilversum on 29 December 1940. The next day, 30 December 1940, he was interred in the Jewish Cemetery at Muiderberg.
Shortly after the passing of her husband, the widowed Rebecca Beer-Cohen also moved to Hilversum in January 1941 and came to live there at the Prins Bernardstraat 25, where daughter Clarisse then also lived with her husband and sons. When Clarisse and her family moved to Vrolikstraat 311, 3rd floor in Amsterdam on 15 April 1943, Rebecca also went along with them.
Not long after, Rebecca was already arrested and carried off to Westerbor, where she was housed in barrack 60. She was deported on 27 April 1943 with more than 1200 other victims to the extermination camp Sobior and upon arrival there on 30 April 1943, immediately murdered in the gas chambers there. There were no survivors.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Herman Nathan Beer, Rebecca Cohen and Clarisse Beer; the Felix archive of Antwerp/ the Dossiers of Foreigners 109845/Herman Nathan Beer; Amsterdam residence cards, 1e Atjehstraat 71, Molukkenstraat 93 and Vrolikstraat 311; website stenenarchief.nl/grave Herman Nathan Beer/record 34835; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Rebecca Beer-Cohen; the book “Vernietigingskamp Sobibor” (Extermination camp Sobibor), 2nd edition 1994 by Jules Schelvis/transport list 27 April 1943 with Rebecca Beer-Cohen and the website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/transport 27 April 1943.