Abraham Appelboom was born on 24 July 1869 in Amsterdam as a son of Levie Levie Appelboom and Machtel de Beer. Due to brotherly service, he was exempted from joining the National Militia. On 14 March 1888 he married Debora Mok in Amsterdam, a daughter of Mozes Aron Mok and Catharina Peereboom who was born in Haarlem on 6 February 1866. After the marriage was concluded, they lived at Lepelstraat 59 in Amsterdam, where their only son Maurits was born on 14 November 1888.
Afterwards they moved to 's-Gravezandestraat, Pretoriusstraat, Cillierstraat and Ingogostraat. In the beginning, Abraham earned his living as a merchant, but from 1901 onwards he became a diamond worker and a member of the ANDB, the General Dutch Diamond Workers' Union. There he became skilled in adjusting, grinding and sawing brilliant. His membership of trade groups 1 (brilliant grinder bosses), 2 (servants) and 3 (adjusters) therefore also started on different dates.
But between 1901 and 1916 Abraham Appelboom was an ANDB member on-and-off. During that time he left for Antwerp several times to practice his profession there. So he left for Antwerp in August 1908 and after returning to Amsterdam, againto Antwerp in November 1911 and from September 1915 he stayed in Borgerhout with his wife Debora Mok and son Maurits.
From November 1916, the Appelboom family lived again in Amsterdam at Ingogostraat 13, 1st floor, located in the Transvaal district of Amsterdam-East. Debora Mok died there on 26 December 1916. She was buried at the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen.
Abraham Appelboom subsequently married in Zaandam Henriette Oudkerk, a daughter of Meijer Oudkerk and Maria Cohenno, on 28 February 1918, who was born in Den Helder on 2 August 1877. Son Maurits left the parental home on 29 April 1926, when he married Sophia Wilhelmina Neuburger, 10 years his junior. She was born on 6 September 1898 in Amsterdam as the daughter of Andries Neuburger and Betje Eljon.
Henriette Oudkerk moved in with Abraham Appelboom after the marriage was concluded in 1918, but no more children were born from the wedlock of Abraham and Henriette. They lived on the 1st floor of Ingogostraat 13 until their deportation.
As far as can be deduced from the transport list of 9 September 1942 from Amsterdam to Westerbork, in which Abraham Appelboom and his wife Henriette Oudkerk appear, they apparently responded to a call for the so-called “expansion of work in Germany”.
On the transport lists, these calls are provided with the numbers 2405/5 and 2405/6. Abraham and Henriette probably went to the designated assembly point in Amsterdam and were taken from there to Westerbork on 9 September 1942.
However, it is unknown whether they had already fallen prey to the so-called "new method of the Germans", which consisted in removing the Jews from their homes after 8 o'clock in the evening from the beginning of September; "the Jews did not come of their own accord, so they went and fetched them from their houses themselves".
On Tuesday, September 8, Aus der Fünten received the two chairmen of the Jewish Council, who pointed out to him the unrest that had been caused by the 'new method' of collection, especially by the circumstance that elderly people were called up; people of 90 years of age were brought along for the 'labor deployment'. The answer was that the first duty was to complete the transports (source book “Ondergang” part I by Dr. J . Presser, published May 1965, pp. 278 and 279)
On 11 September 1942, Abraham Appelboom and his 2nd wife Henriette Oudkerk were put on transport to Auschwitz; the deportation train contained 874 deportees, of whom 140 boys and men between the ages of 15 and 50 were forced to leave the train during a stopover in Cosel to be put to work in the surrounding labor camps in Silesia.
Those who remained on the train were transported further to Auschwitz. Upon arrival there on 14 September 1942, 73-year-old Abraham Appelboom and 65-year-old Henriette Oudkerk were immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Abraham Appelboom and Meijer Oudkerk; archive cards of Abraham Appelboom, Henriette Oudkerk, Maurits Appelboom, Sophia Wilhelmina Neuburger and Dorus and Betty Appelboom; the Amsterdam Militia register/Abraham Appelboom; website ANDB/membership of Abraham Appelboom; the Felix Archive/Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp 1120#1897; website stenenarchief.nl/record 40005 – Debora Mok; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Abraham Appelboom and Henriette Appelboom-Oudkerk; the archive of the Red Cross, transport list of 9 September 1942 Amsterdam -> Westerbork with Abraham Appelboom and Henriette Appelboom-Oudkerk; the book "Ondergang" part 1 by dr. J.Presser edited in 1965/pp 278 and 179 and the website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/ transport 11 September 1942.