Heiman Oudkerk was a son of Emanuel Oudkerk and Jogeva Sloog. He was born in Den Helder on 30 November 1877, but left for Amsterdam on 9 February 1894, where he initially ended up with his uncle Gerrit Oudkerk from Schagen (1844), a brother of his father, who lived at Warmoesstraat 103. Uncle Gerrit was a slaughterer and butcher and during that period Heiman worked as a butcher too. Gerrit Oudkerk died on 13 May 1902 and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery at Muiderberg.
In December 1904, Heiman left Warmoesstraat and found a place to live in Amsterdam at Nieuwe Herengracht 149, where – in order to support himself – he offered a penmanship course for bad writers. Moreover, at that same address was located the “Institution for Education” of S.I. Norden.
From April 1905, Heiman lived in at Nieuwe Herengracht 75 with Fles, who had a cigar/tobacco store there (Fles & Co) and in January 1906 he moved to Hemonystraat 16, 2nd floor, where he - and later with his wife and children – lived until December 1922. Before his marriage, Heiman Oudkerk worked as an office clerk. In 1906 he was a commercial traveler, but in 1918 he was registered as a merchant and was the owner of a wholesale trade in knitted goods
On 28 December 1905, Heiman married Helena Sondervan, a daughter of Levie Mordechai Sondervan and Hester Cohen. Helena was born 4 February 1874 in Amsterdam. After the marriage was concluded, Helena moved in with her husband at Hemonystraat 16 2nd floor where Heiman had lived since 8 April 1905 and where their two children were born too: Henriette Cato on 28 September 1906 and more than 11 years later, on 1 January 1918. Emanuel Herman. On 29 December 1922, the family moved to Roelof Hartstraat 26 3rd level in Amsterdam-South.
Emanuel Herman Oudkerk married Silvia Mignon Breedt, born in Batavia, on 12 June 1940 in Amsterdam and left with her on 20 July 1940 to the Dufaystraat 2 ground floor in Amsterdam-South. Three months later, on 15 October 1940, they moved to the Willem de Zwijgerlaan 24 ground floor in Amsterdam-West. In June 1941 he fell victim to the 2nd raid in Amsterdam and was killed in Mauthausen in October 1941. Read more:
Henriette Cato, who still lived at home with her parents, was given a job on 20 July 1942 as secretary at the General Service of the Jewish Council, Department "Information", at Lijnbaansgracht 366 and was given a "Sperre". Not only she self, but her housemates too - parents in this case - were therefore provisionally exempt from deportation. This exemption proved effective for her parents until the end of June 1943, despite the fact that the Germans had actually already declared all exemptions as expired.
At the beginning of April 1943, the Jewish Council still declared that her mother, Helena Oudkerk-Sondervan, who was not formally “gesperrt”, worked at the Department Food Preparation for The Departing. But on 29 June 1943, Heiman Oudkerk and his wife Helena Sondervan were still arrested and taken to Westerbork, where they had to await their deportation in barrack 57.
On 6 July they were deported to Sobibor. Heiman has still made attempts to protect both of them from deportation. Their 36-year-old daughter Henriette Cato - who had married on 23 April 1943 in Amsterdam the 29-year-old Gerard Oudkerk, a son of Meijer Gerrit Oudkerk and Dina van Praag - as well as her newlywed husband Gerard, as Jewish Council employees, after the large and secretly prepared raid of 20 June 1943, got the very last and ultimate exemption from deportation, the so-called “Ausnahme Bescheinigung 170”.
That 6th of July 1943, Heiman Oudkerk tried in Westerbork to avoid being deported with his wife Helena, by means of a copy of his daughter's Ausnahme Bescheinigung, to which no response had been received on 7 July: the transport to Sobibor had already left on the 6th… A package for Helena Oudkerk-Sondervan was also returned to the Social Affairs Department on 11 July 1943 due to “wrong addressing”...
Upon arrival in Sobibor on 9 July 1943, the more than 2400 deported victims of this transport, including Heiman Oudkerk and his wife Helena Oudkerk-Sondervan, were then immediately murdered in the gas chambers.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Heiman Oudkerk; closed down family registration cards/Warmoesstraat 103 with Gerrit Oudkerk (1844); archive cads of Heiman Oudkerk, Helena Sondervan; Emanuel Oudkerk, Henriette Cato Oudkerk, Gerard Oudkerk; website Joods Amsterdam/Nieuwe Herengracht 149 and Nieuwe Keizersgracht 14); Birth certificates Amsterdam for Emanuel Oudkerk and Henriette Cato Oudkerk; Amsterdam residence cards/Hemonystraat 16 II and Roelof Hartstraat 26 III; Peoples Registry of Den Helder/Emanuel Oudkerk x Jogeva Sloog and children; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Heiman Oudkerk, Helena Cato Oudkerk-Oudkerk, Gerard Oudkerk, Emanuel Oudkerk (1918); archive Red Cross/transport list 29 June 1943 as nrs 404 and 405 – see “Blatt 7 on page 13 of 25); website ITS Arolson/ lists deceased concentration camps of Heiman Oudkerk, Helena Oudkerk-Sondervan and Henriette Cato Oudkerk-Oudkerk and the website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/6 July 1943.