Biography

About Elsje Oudkerk,

the unmarried daughter of Meijer Oudkerk and Maria Cohenno.

Elsje Oudkerk was the second youngest of the seven children of Meijer Oudkerk and Maria Cohenno and was born on 7 March 1882 in Amsterdam. Her father was previously married to Grietje Trijbetz, who however died at the birth of her first and stillborn daughter on 15 August 1872.

Her father had seven children with his 2nd wife Maria Cohenno, namely Heiman in May 1874, but died 4 weeks later. Then Jochem in June 1875, who however became only 3 weeks old. Then in August 1876 their third child, a daughter, whom they called Elsje, but who also died already after 6 days. Then came Henriette in 1877, Hijman in 1879, Elsje Oudkerk, born in 1882, the sixth child  in the Oudkerk family and the last and 7th was Betje in 1887.

Elsje Oudkerk remained unmarried and worked for more than 25 different families in Amsterdam between 1913 and 1942 as a maid and domestic helper and lived at just as many different addresses. Before that, she left as a 17-year-old in June 1899 with her parents and her brother Hijman and sister Betje for Den Helder, from where they returned to Amsterdam in March 1902.

In August 1940 she lived with the unmarried Esther Snoek (1872) at Swammerdamstraat 61 2nd floor, which also became her last known address in the Netherlands. After the mandatory registration in 1941 with the Jewish Council, she was transported from Amsterdam to Westerbork on 19 November 1942, where she was brought in on 21 November 1942. On 4 December, 60-year-old Elsje Oudkerk was deported to Auschwitz in a transport of 811 deportees and upon arrival on 7 December 1942 she was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Sources include the Amsterdam City Archives, family cards of Meijer Oudkerk (1846) and Elsje Oudkerk (1882); archive card Elsje Oudkerk; residence card Amsterdam/Swammerdamstraat 61 II with Esther Snoek and Elsje Oudkerk; the archives of the Red Cross, transport list Amsterdam-Westerbork of 19 November 1942 with Elsje Oudkerk as no. 376; the archive of the Jewish Council, registration card of Elsje Oudkerk, the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/transport 4 December 1942 and the death certificate 531 of 8 May 1951 drawn up in Amsterdam for Elsje Oudkerk from register A93-folio 90.

 

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