Helene Dzialowski was a daughter of Aron Dzialowski and Anna Pauline Ritter. She was born in Kempen in Poland on 10 March 1892 and married in Leipzig on 16 September 1921 Saul Mozes Slagter from Rotterdam, born on 24 August 1882 as son of Mozes Barend Slagter and Rosetta Zoest.
Saul left from Rotterdam for Berchem (Antwerp) where he arrived in December 1920 and from where he later travelled on to Leipzig. After the wedding in September 1921 in Leipzig, Saul Mozes Slagter and his wife Helene Dzialowski returned to Antwerp, where on 13 December 1922 their daughter Esther was born.
The Slagter family then arrived in Rotterdam on 20 February 1923 where they lived at Walenburgerweg 20b. In Antwerp, Saul was a governor of a school but in Rotterdam he became “head of a religious school”. On 25 November Saul and Helene had a stillborn son and on 10 August 1930 their son Mozes Wolf was born. However, ten days later, on 20 August 1930, Saul Mozes Slagter passed away and he was interred in the Jewish Cemetery Toepad in Rotterdam.
After the passing of her husband, Helene Slagter-Dzialowski, her daughter Esther and her just born son Mozes Wolf moved on 10 December 1930 to the Adrien Hildersstraat 29a and on 27 November 1936 they moved into a house at the Schietbaanlaan 60b, where at the same time also Helene’s father, the almost 80 year old Aron Dzialowski came living in. On 14 August 1938 the family again was struck by fate: Esther Slagter died at the young age of 15 years and she too was interred in the Jewish Cemetery Toepad in Rotterdam.
On 9 October 1942, Helene Slagter and her son Mozes Wolf were arrested and carried off to Westerbork and most likely at the same time Helene’s father Aron Dzialowski too. On 7 November 1942 he still stayed in barrack 70 in Westerbork but on 13 November he was moved to hospital barrack 81, where he passed on 16 November 1942. Aron Dzialowski was interred in the Jewish Cemetery Toepad in Rotterdam.
Presumably, Helene and her son Mozes Wolf applied in Westerbork for emigration, hoping to get a Palestine certificate. It is not known whether they were able to meet the required criteria but from notes on their Jewish Council registration cards it appeared that they possessed the so-called “Albersheim declaration”, a medical certificate, on the basis of which one could demonstrate physical fitness for the pioneer work.
During the rest of 1942 and the entire year of 1943, Helene and her son Mozes Wolf stayed in Westerbork, but in different barracks, like 63 and 57 and since 27 January 1943 Mozes Wolf even stayed for some time in the male department of the camp hospital in barrack 6. Not known how their application for emigration has ended.
However, in the end both were put on the first transport from Westerbork to Bergen Belsen which left 11 January 1944. There Mozes Wolf Slagter lost his life on 26 May 1944. Towards the end of the war, as one of the 2500 prisoners, Helene Slagter-Dzialowski, was put on the last of three trains to be deported from Bergen Belsen to Theresienstadt but was liberated by the Russian Red Army near Tröbitz, after a terrible 10-days ramble through Germany. As a result of the hardships she suffered, she died in the small village of Schilda on 16 May 1945, located about 3 km near Tröbitz and later she has been buried in the Jewish Cemetery Toepad in Rotterdam too.
Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration card of Saul Mozes Slagter; the Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp, nr. 169105-image 404-407; website hetstenenarchief.nl/graves of Aron Dzialowski, Esther Slagter, Saul Mozes Slagter and of Helene Slagter-Dzialowski; Publication “Vermoedelijk op transport”(presumably deported) by Raymond Schütz/ page 44 and 45-Albersheim declaration; website joodsamsterdam.nl/het verloren transport (the lost transport) and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Helene Slagter-Dzialowski and Mozes Wolf Slagter.