Isabella Lissauer , born in Amsterdam on 13 March 1888, was the third of nine children from the second marriage of Jesaja Lissauer with Recha Büttenwieser. From the first marriage of her father with Dina Joseph Prijs, who had died on 22 October 1882, she had four half-sisters, two of whom had died at a young age. The other two half-sisters, Rachel and Clarance, were murdered during the Shoah.
Of the nine children from the second marriage of her father Jesaja Lissauer, four children were murdered during the Shoah, namely Jacob Abraham, Carolina, Joseph Arjé and Isabella herself. The other five children died at a young and/or very young age. In 1896, when Jesaja Lissauer died and her 9th child Salomon was born and died after only 3 months, mother Recha was left “to care for the family alone”
Mother Recha then decided to place three of her children in the boys and girls orphanage: her 9-year-old son Jacob Abraham ended up in the Dutch Israelite Boys Orphanage Jewish Boys Home Megadlé Jethomim at Amstel 21 on 20 November 1896. Her 7-year-old daughter Carolina was placed in the Dutch Israelite Girls Orphanage at Rapenburgerstraat 171 in March 1897 and on 4 August 1897 also the 9-year-old Isabella. All three children stayed there for over 10 years.
Isabella stayed there until 18 January 1907 and her sister Carolina until 26 August 1907. Both sisters then returned to the "parental home", which had become the 1st floor of house number 81 on the Nieuwe Prinsengracht from 5 May 1899. From 4 August 1897 to 5 May 1899, the Lissauers' address was Nieuwe Kerkstraat 101 house, after which they moved to the Nieuwe Prinsengracht 81 in May 1899. Jacob Abraham also returned to the "parental home" after his stay in the Jewish Boys' Home, until his marriage in 1915.
After Recha Lissauer-Büttenwieser died on 17 November 1918 and was ineterred at the Jewish Cemetery in Muiderberg, Isabella became the main resident of the 1st floor of the Nieuwe Prinsengracht 81. She lived there with her sisters Carolina and Sophia, but moved all to Andreas Bonnstraat 32 in 1921, to Kerkstraat 394 in 1922, to Nieuwe Prinsengracht 37 in July 1925 and to Alexanderkade 10 in May 1928.
In the meantime, her sister Sophia, who was born as the 8th child on 13 April 1895 from Jesaja Lissauer’s 2nd marriage, had died on 1 June 1926, aged 31 and was also buried at Muiderberg. Carolina had already left Nieuwe Prinsengracht 81 for Hoogeweg 81 in Amsterdam-Oost at the beginning of September 1925, where she lived with her brother Joseph Arjé Lissauer. Isabella herself had left for Den Helder on 30 July 1930, where she married David Oudkerk in 1931.
Sources include the Amsterdam City Archives, copied parts of the Jesaja Lissauer family; Special registers/Dutch Israelite Girls' Orphanage Rapenburgerstraat 171 with no. 66 Isabella and no. 62 Carolina Lissauer; website Jewish Amsterdam/Jewish Girls' Orphanage; website Jewish Amsterdam/Jewish Boys' Orphanage; family registration cards of Isabella Lissauer and Carolina Lissauer.