Lea Hemelrijk, born on 9 March 1893 in Winterswijk, was a daughter of Marcus Hemelrijk and Dina Strauss. She married there on 27 July 1920 Nathan de Vries, who was born in Giessendam on 18 May 1889 as a son of Jacob de Vries and Louisa Nathan Frank. The couple had one son, Jaap, who was born on 29 November 1927 in Dordrecht.
Before their marriage, Nathan was a commercial traveller by trade and Lea a ladies fashion hat maker. Nathan moved 1 July 1920 to Dordrecht, where he lived in shortly with Jacques Duits in the Voorstraat 33. In Dordrecht, Nathan became a shop assitstant and later he was a branch manager of a store in electrical devices.
On the day of her wedding, also Lea was subscribed in the Municipality of Dordrecht and on 2 Autust 1920 both moved into a house at Voorstraat 186, where also their son Jaap was born. On 2 August 1930 they moved again, this time to J. de Wittstraat 6 in Dordrecht, from where they left for Maastricht to their new address Groote Staat 63, two years later, on 29 November 1932.
On 26 August 1942, Nathan de Vries, his wife Lea Hemelrijk and their son Jaap were arrested there and carried off to Westerbork. Already two days later, on 28 August, they were put on transport to Auschwitz with another 605 deportees. Upon arrival on 31 August 1942, Nathan, Lea and Jaap were immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Sources include the Archief of Dordrecht, family registration cards of Nathan de Vries; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Nathan de Vries, Lea de Vries-Hemelrijk and Jaap de Vries; the Wikipedia listing of jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and the Regional Historical Centre Limburg – death certificate 662 for Nathan de Vries, nr. 663 for Lea de Vries-Hemelrijk and 664 for Jaap de Vries, all made out in Maastricht dated 14 October 1950.