Jacob Abraham Lissauer was a son of Jesaja Lissauer and his second wife Recha Büttenwieser and was born in Amsterdam on 28 December 1886. In October 1882 his father's 1st wife, Dina Joseph Prijs, died, after which he remarried Recha Büttenwieser in October 1883. But also Jacob Abraham's father Jesaja Lissauer died in August 1896, leaving his mother Recha alone to run the family, which at that time consisted of eleven (11) surviving children.
After the passing of his father, his mother decided to place 9-year-old Jacob Abraham in the Dutch Israelite Boys Orphanage Megadlé Jethomim at Amstel 21 and he was placed there on 20 November 1896. Jacob Abraham stayed there for almost 10 years, until 12 February 1906. Meantime he was called up for examination for the National Militia, but was released from service on 18 December 1905 due to minor disabilities.
The then 19-year-old Jacob Abraham Lissauer returned from the Jewish Boys' Home to his parental home in 1906, where he stayed until his marriage on 12 October 1915 to Sarah Hartog, a daughter of Salomon Hartog (Groningen 1861-Muiden 1934) and Marianna Swaap (Muiderberg 1867-Muiden 1936). Sara was born in Antwerp on 17 March 1890, but lived with her parents in Muiden, where also her two brothers, Jerohm and Nathan, were born. Her father was “keeper of the Israelite Cemetery” there.
After Jacob Abraham and Sarah were married in October 1915, they lived at Sarphatistraat 152, 1st floor, where their daughter Regina was born on 2 September 1916. In April 1919 they moved to the Plantage Franschelaan 22 ground floor, and early May 1926 to the Gijsbrecht van Aemstelstraat 28 upper house. Ten years later they moved to Oosterpark 20, 2nd floor, followed by a last move in the same street to the 2nd floor of house number 42.
To provide for his livelihood, Jacob Abraham was a “workman” but also an “official at the Israelite Funeral Service”. In addition, from 5 December 1912, he was cantor and chief caregiver for the deceased at the NIHS, the Dutch Israelite Main Synagogue at Houtmarkt 10 in Amsterdam.
It appears from his registration card from the Jewish Council, where all Jews in the Netherlands mandatory had to register in 1941, that Jacob Abraham Lissauer was "gesperrt”- exempted from deportation because of function", as a result of which his family was also provisionally exempt from deportation.
His daughter Regina had a 4-year education at girls' secondary school and she "used to work” as a stenographer/typist in the editorial office of News Agency A.N.P. Clearing Office in Den Haag. On this basis, on 15 September 1941, after registration with the Jewish Council, she was appointed Chief of the Typing Chamber, located at Sarpatikade 11, for which she received a Jewish Council I.D. number JR-051 and where also the Committee for the Handling of Financial Affairs was accommodated. On 30 April, 1 and 3 May 1942, the obligatory yellow Jew-stars were sold there too.
Despite the exemption from deportation, Jacob Abraham Lissauer's family was arrested during the large-scale raid that the Germans had secretly prepared and carried out on Sunday, 20 June 1943. During that raid, more than 5500 Jewish people were ultimately rounded up in Amsterdam East and South. and taken by train to Westerbork.
Regina, who had been called up for the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz” in the summer of 1942, was deleted from the list for “additional work in Germany under police surveillance” by the Jewish Council on 15 July 1942 because, up from September 1941, she had already been working as head of the typing room in the “financial management” department of the Jewish Council at Sarphatikade 11 in Amsterdam. On 2 July 1942, she had received powers of attorney for Martha Konijnenburg from Euterpestraat 76, 1st floor, and from the former bank employee Isidor Rothschild from Linneauesparkweg 138, an Information Inspector in Westerbork.
Regina was deported to the Sobibor extermination camp on 6 July 1943, where she was immediately murdered in the gas chambers upon arrival on 9 July 1943. Her parents had already been deported to Sobibor a week earlier: on 29 June 1943, that transport left Westerbork with almost 2400 victims, all of whom, including Jacob Abraham Lissauer and his wife Sarah Hartog, were murdered in the gas chambers upon arrival on 2 July 1943.
Sources include the City Archives of Amsterdam, population register Muiderstraat 8 with Lissauer family; Closed down family registration cards with the Jesaja Lissauer family; Special registers/Dutch Israelite Boys Orphanage/Jacob Abraham Lissauer; Closed down family registration cards/Dutch Israelite Boys Orphanage/Jacob Abraham Lissauer; Militia Register Amsterdam/Jacob Abraham Lissauer; family registration cards of Jacob Abraham Lissauer; archive cards of Jacob Abraham Lissauer, Sarah Hartog and Regina Lissauer; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Jacob Abraham Lissauer, Sarah Hartog and Regina Lissauer; Residence card Amsterdam Oosterpark 42 II; the Wikipedia website Jewish transports from the Netherlands/transport 29 June 1943 and 7 June 1943.