Josephine Mendel was the second wife of Hartog van Geldere. She was born in Linnich in Germany and married to him in Hannover on 15 July 1902, after Hartog’s first wife Jettchen Goldberg had passed away in Den Haag on 20 January 1901. From the marriage of Josephine and Hartog, three more children were born, namely Salomon, Sophia Sabine and Sibilla. From the first marriage of Hartog and Jettchen a son was born in 1898 named Berthold Joël van Geldere, who got married in 1929 and lived with his family in Rotterdam.
Salomon van Geldere was born in Den Haag on 27 July 1903; he was unmarried and worked as an warehouse clerk. Sibilla, the youngest, was born on 15 October 1906, also in Den Haag; she worked as a maid and was also unmarried.
The middle daughter Sophia Sabine, born on 24 April 1904 in Den Haag; she married on 16 January 1935 Israel Feiwel Schnur, who was born in Gorlice in Poland on 26 October 1905. They emigrated on 3 May 1935 to Tel Aviv in Palestine and have not passed the Holocaust.
At age 64, Hartog van Geldere passed away on 2 June 1923 in Den Haag and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Wassenaar. In 1926 Josephine Mendel and her children moved to Gedempte Burgwal 40 in Den Haag, then in 1935 to the Gentschestraat 70 and after her daughter Sophia Sabine and her husband Israel Feiwel Schnur left for Tel Aviv, the Van Geldere family moved to the Arnhemschestraat 78 in Scheveningen on 5 January 1939.
In the context of the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz” the youngest daughter Sibilla has been deported to Auschwitz on 21 August 1942. According to the “Sterbebücher of Auschwitz” – the death records – she was murdered there on 1 September 1942. (see biography and story with Sibilla van Geldere).
Together with her son Salomon, Josephine van Geldere-Mendel were called to report in Westerbork on 4 December 1942, from where they were both put on transport to Auschwitz on 11 January 1943. Upon arrival there on 14 January 1943, Josephine van Geldere-Mendel was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
At the other hand, Salomon van Geldere passed the selection and was put to work as a forced labourer; where he ended up, in- or outside the camp or in which “Kommando” (squad) he was added to, is unknown. It is therefore that the Dutch Ministry of Justice after the war has established, - based on testimonies of survivors – that Salomon van Geldere could no longer be alive after 30 April 1943. Then the Municipality of Den Haag has been commissioned to draw up a certificate of death for Salomon van Geldere, in which it is established that Salomon van Geldere has died on 30 April 1943 in the surroundings of Auschwitz.
Sources include the Municipal Archive of Den Haag, family registration cards of Hartog van Geldere and the widowed Josephine van Geldere-Mendel with among others Salomon van Geldere; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Josephine van Geldere-Mendel and Salomon van Geldere and the certificate of death for Salomon van Geldere, no. C560 dated 30 August 1952 made out in Den Haag.