Biography

About Alida Paulina (Alie) Franco-de Bruin.

Alida Paulina de Bruin, usually called Alie, was a daughter of the butcher Simon de Bruin and Hester Ligtenstein in Dedemsvaart, municipality of Avereest. She had a brother Izaak Meijer and two sisters Cornelia Alida (Corrie) and Eva. Zij were all killed during the Holocaust.

In July 1930, Alie left Avereest for Amsterdam, where she provided for herself as day servant maid. She lived at St. Antoniebreestraat 22 but moved per 24 October 1932 to house nr. 67, where since January also her sister Cornelia Alida lived. Afterwards, Alie  certainly moved a dozen times to various addresses in Amsterdam, before she arrived 20 Juni 1938 at J.D. Meijerplein 21 ground floor. 8 April 1940 she moved to Staalstraat 10 1st floor, the street where at nr. 11 her sister Eva, and at nr. 13 a her sister Corrie lived.

On 17 July 1940 Alie married at the age of 26 in Amsterdam the 46-year old Arnold Franco, a son of Aron David Franco and Josephina de Vos. Arnold Franco provided for himself in may trades but at the time of the mandatory registration of the Jews in the Netherlands in 1941, he was a druggist. On 23 May 1941 the Franco-couple moved to Zwanenburgwal 82 2nd floor. They had no children.

Alida Paulina Franco-de Bruin was deported to Westerbork between 3 and 5 October 1942 where she had to stay in barrack 63. In contrast to her “Ashkenazi” descent, her husband belonged to the “Sephardic Jews” and he was a member of the Portuguese Israelitic Congregation (P.I.G.) in Amsterdam. The Jewish-Portuguese community in Holland started in 1942 to focus on what became known as “Action Portugesia”, however 3 February 1944 the command, given by SS-general Kaltenbrunner, was “to insert Sephardic Jews immediately into the evacuation process”.

It might have been possible that the P.I.G. stamp on Alida’s registration card of the Jewish Council has contributed in the possibility of exempt from deportation. This stamp however was cancelled and 8 February 1944 she was put on transport to Auschwitz, where she was killed immediately on arrival there 11 February 1944.

The address data of Alida’s spouse Arnold Franco on his personal archive card of the City Archive of Amsterdam show that he never has been in Westerbork; it is likely that he has  lived during the war at his home address Zwanenburgwal 82 2nd floor till 8 April 1944, when he moved to Soerabajastraat 66 2nd stock in Amsterdam. He survived the Shoah and passed away in Amsterdam 20 March 1968.

City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards and archive cards of Alida Paulina de Bruin and Arnold Franco; website Historiek/Aktie Portugesia; list of Jew-transports from the Netherlands; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Arnold Franco and Alida Paulina Franco-de Bruin and From the book “De Joodse Gemeenschap van Avereest”, pages 12 and 13, by Peter Makaske, published in 1992 by Servo Publishers, Adolph van Ansenlaan 16, 9451 GR Rolde (Drenthe). (ISBN 90-71918-44-0).

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