Biography

About Hendrika Rodrigues Parreira and her husband Salomon Salzedo.

Hendrika Rodrigues Parreira was a daughter of Abraham Rodrigues Parreira and Jetje Brandon. She was born on 16 June 1902 in Amsterdam and the 3rd in the family of in total six children. Hendrika was a dressmaker, just as her eldest sister Mietje, but after she was married on 27 November 1935 to the cigar maker and shopkeeper Salomon Salzedo, she left her profession for what it was. Hendrika and Salomon had no children together.

Hendrika lived at home with her parents; per 29 November 1934 the Rodrigues Parreira family lived at Roetersstraat 3A groundfloor, but in October 1935, the family moved to Lepelstraat 62. One month later, when Hendrika got married, she and her husband Salomon Salzedo moved into house 3a groundfloor Roetersstraat again, where they remained living till they both were arrested during the raids of 26 May 1943 and via Muiderpoort railway station were carried off to Westerbork.

Both their registration cards from the Jewish Council showed, that Hendrika Rodrigues Parreira and her husband Salomon Salzedo had been provisionally released from deportation on 1 August 1942. During the Second World War, Portuguese Jews tried to gain a place on Portuguese and emigration lists by emphasizing their Portuguese descent in order to escape deportation. Through extensive genealogical and scientific research, the Portuguese Jews tried to prove that they belonged to the Mediterranean and not to the Jewish race. Their Jewish identity would be based solely on religion. (sources Lydia Hagoort in the Historisch Nieuwsblad 10/2005.

When Hendrika and Salomon arrived in Westerbork that 26th of May 1943, they were housed in barrack 57 and on 1 June 1943 put on transport to Sobibor, in a transport of in total 3006 deportees. Upon arrival there on 4 June 1943, still a few men were selected to perform forced labour elsewhere, among them also Jules Schelvis, but all the others, including Hendrika Salzedo-Rodrigues Parreira and Salomon Salzedo were immediately murdered afterwards in the gas chambers. The only survivor of this transport was Jules Schelvis.

Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Salomon Salzedo and Abraham Rodrigues Parreira, archive cards of Hendrika Rodrigues Parreira and Salomon Salzedo; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Hendrika Salzedo-Rodrigues Parreira and Salomon Salzedo; the wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and “Binnen de Poorten”(Within the gates) pages 35-40 by Jules Schelvis/editor De Bataafse Leeuw, 6th edition 1995.

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