Betje Kroon was a daughter of Joseph Isaac Kroon and Roosje Polak. She was born on 3 November 1858 in Rotterdam, where she married at the age of 42 on 30 October 1901 the 36-year old doorman Leonardus Berlijn, born 8 April 1865 in Rotterdam as son of Benjamin Berlijn and Rosalie de Levita.
On 25 September 1902 their first born child was born, Rosalie, who however died already on 7 November 1902, just a little more than one month old and on 28 April 1905 a stillborn daughter was born. From the marriage of Leonardus and Betje no more children were born.
At the time of his wedding to Betje Kroon, Leonardus Berlijn worked as a doorman, but after 1905 he became a confectionery shopkeeper. Betje and Leonardus moved from Rotterdam to Renswoude and from there to Utrecht city and ±1912 they lived again in Rotterdam, in the end at some seven different addresses in the city, but per 5 June 1928, the Berlijn-Kroon couple lived in the Israelitic Old Peoples home at Claes de Vrieselaan 70 in Rotterdam.
However, Leonardus Berlijn passed away in Rotterdam, yet before the outbreak of the war, on 14 March 1940 in Rotterdam but his widow, Betje Kroon, was taken in the early days of October 1942 from the Claes de Vrieselaan to be carried off to Westerbork. On 12 October she has been put on transport to Auschwitz, where on arrival there on 15 October 1942, she was immediately killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Sources among others: the city Archive of Rotterdam, family registration card of Leonardus Berlijn and Betje Kroon, the certificate of death for Betje Kroon, nr. 1950.3350 page v4-54 from Rotterdam, website wiewaswie.nl/wedding Berlijn-Kroon; Peoples Registry of the Archive of Utrecht and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Betje Berlijn-Kroon.
The original text of the biography was adjusted after research by the editors of the Joods Monument on 6 May 2020.