Ruben Heertje was a son of Bernard Heertje and Henriette Bino. He was born in Amsterdam on 25 June 1905 and he worked as an office clerk and was a radio expert. Ruben married on 30 August 1933 Betsie Waterman, who was born on 8 December 1909 in Amsterdam as the daughter of Hartog Waterman and Heintje Granaat. She was working as a sales lady.
On 3 September 1939 their daughter Hannie was born. Ruben was killed during the Shoah; Betsie and Hannie have survived the Holocaust and were “repatriated” via Eindhoven to Amsterdam, where Betsie remarried in March 1947 the in 1907 born Simon Peeper.
After their wedding in 1933, Ruben Heertje and his wife Betsie Waterman lived in the St. Jorisstraat 2 in the centre of Amsterdam. On 24 April 1936 they moved to Amstelstraat 19 3rd floor, where since March 1936 on the 2nd floor also his in-laws Hartog Waterman and Heintje Granaat have come to live.
It is not impossible, that Ruben Heertje, together with his brother-in-law Meijer Waterman and his wife Kaatje David, responded to the call for the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz” in Germany and that they reported for this in Westerbork at the beginning of August. Already on 10 August 1942, Ruben Heertje has been deported to Auschwitz, along with his brother-in-law and sister-in-law.
About two days later, upon arrival 11/12 Autust in Auschwitz, Ruben was selected as a forced labourer. The death records of Auschwitz however (Sterbebücher) reveal that Ruben Heertje had died there on 27 August 1942. It is not known whether he lost his life there due to the inhumane circumstances there or that he was killed that date in the gas chambers there.
After the war, these data and other information about Auschwitz were still unknown in the Netherlands at the time. Therefore, the Dutch Ministry of Justice ordered the Municipality of Amsterdam then to draw up a certificate of death for Ruben Heertje, is which was established that he has died on 30 September 1942 in Auschwitz.
Sources including the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card and archive card of Ruben Heertje; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Ruben Heertje, Betsie Heertje-Waterman and Hannie Heertje; website Auschwitz.org/prisoners/Ruben Heertje; the death certificate made out in Amsterdam for Ruben Heertje, nr. 357 dated 4 Aug 1950 from the A-register 44-folio 59 v and additions of visitors of the website.