Meyer van Gelder was a son of Salomon van Geldere and Sophia Polak. He was the 11th of the 13 children and was born on 28 April 1874 in Rotterdam. His parents those days resided at Raamstraat and his father earned his living as a second-hand dealer.
On 11 October 1898 Meyer and his brother Benjamin lived in Utrecht and they were shop keepers. Meyer was married on 9 November 1900 to Flora Meyer in Crefeld, a daughter of Benjamin Meyer and Susanna Heilbron and on 30 November 1900 both were registered at Oude Gracht 57 (Tolsteeg side) with his brother Benjamin, who left for Haarlem at the end of February 1904.
Meyer and his wife Flora moved in February 1905 to another residence at the Oude Gracht, nr. 41. Meantime twins were born on 5 July 1902, namely Eugène Benjamin and Arthur Salomon van Gelder. On 28 October 1910 the family left Utrecht for Cologne.
The Van Gelder family stayed in Germany till 1930 and resided that year in Cleve. On 14 October 1930 they arrived from Cleve in Amsterdam, where they have lived at several addresses, among others at Johannes Verhulststraat and at Koninginneweg. Flora Meyer however passed away on 12 June 1935 and she was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen.
After the passing of his wife, Meyer van Gelder moved in November 1935 again to the Johannes Verhulststraat 88, where he lived in with “Polak”; on 2 September 1937 to the Den Texstraat 11 for lodging with “Vos”and on 4 Febuary 1939 to the Spuistraat 197, which would turn out to be his last known address in the Netherlands.
In 1937 his unmarried son Arthur Salomon van Gelder moved from Amsterdam to Rotterdam. During the Holocaust he managed to reach Switzerland and was able to survive the war. On 24 August 1945 he was repatriated from there to the Netherlands. On 26 August 1947 he left Holland for Los Angeles in the USA.
His other son Eugène Benjamin van Gelder was designated for the service in the National Militia in June 1921, after he and his brother Arthur has drawn lots. On 18 December 1935 he married Johanna Anita Steinfeld in Bonn (Germany) who was born there on 14 September 1910 as a dauthter of Arthur Steinfeld and Wilhelmine Levy.
Eugène and his wife Johanna arrived from Bonn in Amsterdam in 1938 where they at first have lived in with father Meyer van Gelder in the Den Texstraat 11. Per 1 March 1940 they moved to Tintorettostraat 7 1st floor in Amsterdam-South.
In February 1943 Eugène Benjamin van Gelder and his wife Johanna Anita Steinfeld were arrested and carried off to concentration camp Vught. In the end, they arrived via Westerbork in Theresienstadt. Meantime, their daughter Yvonne was born on 11 May 1943 in Westerbork. Mother and daughter eventually survived the Shoah. Eugène Benjamin van Gelder was deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz and during the so-called “evacuation transports” from the Auschwitz-complex, he lost his life in Mid-Europe on 28 February 1945.
Up from early February 1939, Meyer van Gelder, widower, lived at Spuistraat 197 in Amsterdam. There he was arrested in the end of March 1943 and via the Hollandsche Schouwburg he ended up in Westerbork on 1 April 1943, where he was accommodated in barrack 68. On 6 April Meyer was put on transport to Sobibor where he was murdered immediately in the gas chambers there upon arrival on 9 April 1943.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Meyer van Gelder and Eugène Benjamin van Gelder, Amsterdam family registration cards of Meyer van Gelder; website stenenarchief.nl/grave Flora Meyer; website openarchieven/Eugène Benjamin van Gelder; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Meyer van Gelder, Arthur Salomon van Gelder and Eugène Benjamin van Gelder, Johanna Anita van Gelder-Steinfeld and Yvonne van Gelder; Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl; website ITS Arolson/Yvonne van Gelder and Johanna Anita van Gelder-Steinfeld and the certificate of death nr. 152 dated 27 February 1953 for Eugène Benjamin van Gelder, reg.A99-fol.27.